At eight o’clock all hands were called aft, and the watches set for the voyage.  Some changes were made; but I was glad to find myself still in the larboard watch.  Our crew was somewhat diminished; for a man and a boy had gone in the Pilgrim; another was second mate of the Ayacucho; and a fourth, Harry Bennett, the oldest man of the crew, had broken down under the hard work and constant exposure on the coast, and, having had a stroke of the palsy, was left behind at the hide-house, under the charge of Captain Arthur.  The poor fellow wished very much to come home in the ship; and he ought to have been brought home in her.  But a live dog is better than a dead lion, and a sick sailor belongs to nobody’s mess; so he was sent ashore with the rest of the lumber, which was only in the way.  He had come on board, with his chest, in the morning, and tried to make himself useful about decks; but his shuffling feet and weak arms led him into trouble, and some words were said to him by the mate.  He had the spirit of a man, and had become a little tender, perhaps weakened in mind, and said, ``Mr. Brown, I always did my duty aboard until I was sick.  If you don’t want me, say so, and I’ll go ashore.’’ ``Bring up his chest,’’ said Mr. Brown, and poor Bennett went down into a boat and was taken ashore, with tears in his eyes.  He loved the ship and the crew, and wished to get home, but could not bear to be treated as a soger or loafer on board.  This was the only hard-hearted thing I ever knew Mr. Brown to do.

By these diminutions, we were short-handed for a voyage round Cape Horn in the dead of winter.  Beside Stimson and myself, there were only five in the forecastle; who, together with four boys in the steerage, the sailmaker, carpenter, cook, and steward, composed the crew.  In addition to this, we were only four days out, when the sailmaker, who was the oldest and best seaman on board, was taken with the palsy, and was useless for the rest of the voyage.  The constant wading in the water, in all weathers, to take off hides, together with the other labors, is too much for men even in middle life, and for any who have not good constitutions. (Beside these two men of ours, the second officer of the California and the carpenter of the Pilgrim, as we afterwards learned, broke down under the work, and the latter died at Santa Barbara.  The young man, too, Henry Mellus, who came out with us from Boston in the Pilgrim, had to be taken from his berth before the mast and made clerk, on account of a fit of rheumatism which attacked him soon after he came upon the coast.) By the loss of the sailmaker, our watch was reduced to five, of whom two were boys, who never steered but in fine weather, so that the other two and myself had to stand at the wheel four hours apiece out of every twenty-four; and the other watch had only four helmsmen. ``Never mind,—­ we’re homeward bound!’’ was the answer to everything; and we should not have minded this, were it not for the thought that we should be off Cape Horn in the very dead of winter.  It was now the first part of May; and two months would bring us off the Cape in July, which is the worst month in the year there; when the sun rises at nine and sets at three, giving eighteen hours night, and there is snow and rain, gales and high seas, in abundance.