this post was assigned to me, and I continued at it for six or eight days, tossing, in that time, from eight to ten thousand hides, until my wrists became so lame that I gave in, and was transferred to the gang that was employed in filling the boats, where I remained for the rest of the time.  As we were obliged to carry the hides on our heads from fear of their getting wet, we each had a piece of sheepskin sewed into the inside of our hats, with the wool next our heads, and thus were able to bear the weight, day after day, which might otherwise have worn off our hair, and borne hard upon our skulls.  Upon the whole ours was the best berth, for though the water was nipping cold, early in the morning and late at night, and being so continually wet was rather an exposure, yet we got rid of the constant dust and dirt from the beating of the hides, and, being all of us young and hearty, did not mind the exposure.  The older men of the crew, whom it would have been imprudent to keep in the water, remained on board with the mate, to stow the hides away, as fast as they were brought off by the boats.

We continued at work in this manner until the lower hold was filled to within four feet of the beams, when all hands were called aboard to begin steeving.  As this is a peculiar operation, it will require a minute description.

Before stowing the hides, as I have said, the ballast is levelled off, just above the keelson, and then loose dunnage is placed upon it, on which the hides rest.  The greatest care is used in stowing, to make the ship hold as many hides as possible.  It is no mean art, and a man skilled in it is an important character in California.  Many a dispute have I heard raging high between professed ``beach-combers,’’ as to whether the hides should be stowed ``shingling,’’ or ``back-to-back and flipper-to-flipper’’; upon which point there was an entire and bitter division of sentiment among the savans.  We adopted each method at different periods of the stowing, and parties ran high in the forecastle, some siding with ``old Bill’’ in favor of the former, and others scouting him and relying upon ``English Bob’’ of the Ayacucho, who had been eight years in California, and was willing to risk his life and limb for the latter method.  At length a compromise was effected, and a middle course of shifting the ends and backs at every lay was adopted, which worked well, and which each party granted was better than that of the other, though inferior to its own.

Having filled the ship up, in this way, to within four feet of her beams, the process of steeving began, by which a hundred hides are got into a place where scarce one could be forced by hand, and which presses the hides to the utmost, sometimes starting the beams of the ship,—­ resembling in its effects the jack-screws which are used in stowing cotton.  Each morning we went ashore, and beat and brought off as many hides as we could steeve in a day, and, after breakfast, went down into the hold, where we