A Hunt for Smugglers

IT is necessary once a year that the Wayanda, a revenue - cutter attached to the Pacific service, should show herself in all the roadsteads, bays, and harbors of some four hundred miles of sea-coast extending from San Francisco to San Diego. Ten months out of the twelve, the Wayanda lies off Long Wharf, San Francisco Harbor. She swings regularly to the in-coming and out-going tide, and tunes her cordage to the rough blast, which for eight months in the year tears about eleven o’clock A. M. through the Golden Gate. Meantime, the officers eat, drink, sleep, smoke, tell each other all they know and more, become tired of life, wish for storms, convulsions, earthquakes, anything to dash this monotony with a fresh shade of color.

The Wayanda to a landsman looks a fine specimen of marine architecture. She is long, low, black, rakish, trim, and taut. Yet she is a maritime delusion. She is a contractor’s imposition. Her engines are too large for the vessel. The boilers are too small to supply the necessary steam for the engines. When she was fully built, it was found that there was no room for stowing coal. So they sawed her in two, and pieced her out thirty feet. Hence she is suspected of having a weak back. She should be at least one third faster than she is. She is a fine specimen of what Uncle Sam often gets for his money.

No matter. About eighteen months ago, I found myself on board the Wayanda, bound down the coast. My position was uncertain. It hovered between that of passenger and “correspondent.” We were on the yearly official hunt For smugglers. We were passing out the Golden Gate.

Fifteen hours’ sail brought us to Santa Cruz. We found it a New England village on the Pacific coast. The harbor is an open roadstead. The waves roll in a little shorn of their native force. There was one high pier at which a few vessels were surging and straining uneasily at their hawsers. We landed, and strolled into the city. We call anything in excess of a barn a city in California.

The inhabitants told us, if we came for sight-seeing purposes, it was our duty to visit the cathedral. The term “cathedral ” is also in California recklessly applied to all manner of church edifices. The cathedral at Santa Cruz was barny, and the plastered walls badly battered by the last earthquake. When inside, a little boy seemed to be mysteriously produced from some portion of the edifice. The Padre was not at home. He offered to show us about. We said, “ Show.” He carried us behind the altar into a room full of images in plaster and wax, full of candlesticks, and heavy silk vestments with glittering fringes. I do not think we had any business there. I believe now that the little boy was emboldened by our presence to go there, and that, in the absence of the appropriate guardians, he used us as a foil to satisfy his own curiosity.

The officers and the correspondent, leaving the cathedral, went once more into the town, and demanded other sights to see. The inhabitants said there was nothing but a funeral. If we felt— No. We declined the invitation.

The Wayanda’s cutter was signalled, and we went on board. Up came the anchor, and we sailed for Monterey. The roadstead makes a deep indentation in the coast. On one side lies Santa Cruz, on the other Monterey.

Monterey seemed the Sleepy Hollow of the Pacific coast. Here is yet a tinge of the dreamy, misty, guitartinkling, fandangoing atmosphere of the old Alta California, — the California which was but a yellow blotch on the ink-stained map of the school-boy, unfenced, cattle covered, famous only for hides and tallow and “ Two Years before the Mast ” ; knowing nothing and caring less for the busy outer world.

Scarce an inhabitant was seen as we landed and walked the main street. The clang of the blacksmith’s hammer was heard from end to end of the town. So was the thump of some busy matron’s “pound-barrel.” A head occasionally peeped from a doorway; a squeaky pump wheezed its lamentations over the whole place and the fields beyond ; an invisible crow cawed in the upper air ; and had you looked closely upon the surrounding semicircle of hills, covered with tall red-woods, you might have seen a Mexican Rip Van Winkle toiling upward with his gun and dog Schneider, —going to sleep.

A chapel was open ; curtains hung at the entrance partly pulled aside ; we looked within ; the altar was decorated with flowers and crowded with the other paraphernalia of Catholic worship; the candles were burning; it seemed restful and devotional for a week-day. In architecture, the brown, sun-baked, one-storied adobe of the Mexican, and the white front and green blind of painfully “ smart ” Yankeedom, stood side by side. In places the sidewalks were curbed with vertebral joints of the whale. There were even pavements of the same material, and we walked on round disks of bone.

The beach in front was strewn with whales’ ribs and bones, bleached to whiteness. At a little distance they seemed like an accumulation of driftwood. Boat-whaling is extensively carried on here. There were the boats, those specks in the horizon. They set out by daylight and return at dusk. Beyond a headland, a mile or so away, rose a dark, thick column of smoke. They had beached a whale, and were trying him out.

At last we unearthed an inhabitant. It was the town cobbler. He came forth to meet us. It was but nine o’clock, yet this man had been deep in potations. He met us coming up the street; he turned, accompanied us, and introduced himself and his business. There was a drunken, bloodshot roll in his eye, a corresponding one in his gait, another in his voice.

“ Cobbulin, genlemen, cobbulun is bess bizness any one man can go to withouter capitle,” said he. “ Don’t require any stock in trade. I 've been here four year ; I had no captle when I come, I got none now. Whoop! Genlemen, wha’s your bizness ? wha’s you come here for?” At this point, having reached the hotel, we entered. The cobbler of Monterey, fraternizing and rejoicing, entered with us. The landlord proceeded instantly to sift our party, for he put the fraternizing shoemaker out. And then he took the middle of the street, and, for an hour, was violent and abusive concerning all “ stuck-up ristercrats.”

There was much to admire about Monterey. On the outskirts were native oaks, umbrella-shaped as to foliage, the outer ends of the limbs almost touching the ground full forty feet from the trunk, — perfect tree tents. There was a forest laundry, —a place of pure water-springs, bush-houses, and robust Mexican matrons scrubbing dilapidated blankets ; but we found no smugglers. We took ship and paddled for San Pablo, the port of entry for Los Angelos.

During the passage down the first lieutenant spoke often of a certain Dr. Smith. Arrived and anchored in San Pablo Harbor, four officers and “ the correspondent” called on Dr. Smith. We found him barber and physician. He held forth in two offices. One bore the sign, “Smith, Shaving, etc.” The next door flourished an enamelled plate labelled, “ Dr. Smith.”

Some years ago there was extant the picture of a young Yankee genius, the inventor of an apple-peeling machine, who had also tried his hand at perpetual motion. He reappeared to me in Smith, —long, lank, hatchet-featured body, boots, white hat, and all.

Dr. Smith was glad to see us. We filed into his barber-shop, and seated ourselves on anything convenient. It was a country barber’s shop. It smelled of soap, strong soap. The towels were not snowy. There were many flies. Locks of hair lay on the floor, manes of teamsters and United States privates. San Pablo is a government supply depot. Dr. Smith in his shirtsleeves, and white hat a little on one side, took the throne, his own barber’s chair. Well, how was business ? asked Mr. B——. Few other questions were put by our party. Dr. Smith had a text and an audience. For one hour and a half he preached.

Business, he remarked, was fair. He had patients. He cured them, always. He had now four under treatment. He’d knock spots out of their complaints. He always did. San Pablo had a mixed population ; part greaser. He did n’t consider a greaser a human being, consequently he did n’t count them in. The soldiers were a nuisance. To protect himself and family from their drunken outrages, he had put up that picket-fence five feet high about his medical office. There was a club inside that fence. If he did find a drunken United States private within those premises, he ’d catch one “ lambasting.” He had invented a new hair invigorator. It was selling fast. Sold four bottles last month. In three weeks it brought hair out on Jim Duffy’s bald head, — brought it out in tufts visible to the naked eye.

A well-known “Invigorator” advertisement hung on Dr. Smith’s walls. “You allow the opposition a fair chance,” was remarked.

Dr. Smith left his chair, reached from a shelf a bottle of the opposing nostrum, struck an attitude, uncorked the mixture, poured a few drops in the palm of his hand, and thrust it under our respective noses.

“ Look at that,” said he. “ Was ever such stuff put up to impose on the multitude ? Sugar of lead, strychnine, oil of vitriol ! They were ashamed of its very look. That was the reason they kept it out of sight, wrapping the outside of the bottle in so many labels and printed directions ! ”

There was a great blotch of baldness on one side of Dr. Smith’s own head. “ You see that, gentlemen. You ask, perhaps, why the physician does not heal himself. Now, the cause of that’s internal. Ran on my mother’s hot flatiron at the age of one year and eight months. It dried the capillaries forever. You see it’s internal. You dry up the capillaries, and there’s nothing left to build a hair foundation on.”

Just then a matted, sun-bleached beard, attached to a gray shirt, buckskin pants, big boots, and a black-snake whip, stepped in to be tortured. Dr. Smith quickly vacated his chair, tucked a blood-spotted towel under the victim’s chin, gave his lather a stir which filled the shop with the subdued odor of lye, slapped a razor on the leather strap, keeping the while one of his ferret eyes fixed on the man as if expecting he might all at once bolt and run.

We took this opportunity to leave. We thanked Dr. Smith for the morning’s entertainment. It had been such. He waved us off with independent civility. He looked the independent American, proud of his nationality, proud of his enterprise, proud of his varied powers and talents, and not to be made servile even by a visit from a party of bluecoated, brass-buttoned revenue officers. We pronounced Smith a success. San Pablo had nothing else to offer. There was no need. One such man as Dr. Smith, — barber, physician, conversationalist, and inventor, — properly developed and shown up, is enough for any small town.

One more port remained, San Diego. In twenty-four hours Point Soma had loomed up, the extremity of the cape forming San Diego Harbor. We rounded it and steamed carefully through a narrow passage, a low sandy beach on either side. The cutter’s boats were out taking soundings ; the leads were kept busily going from both fore-chains. We came at last into a smooth, semicircular sheet of water, San Diego Harbor. Directly opposite was New San Diego, built up within two years, — an American town, a speculative town, scattering itself over many acres, slightly inclining from the water’s edge. Two miles away on an arm of the bay was dimly seen Old San Diego.

New San Diego, at the time of our arrival, had reached the climax of the real-estate and town-lot fever. Scarcely had our anchor dropped than an excited populace came off to us in small boats. They scrambled on deck ; they waited no introduction ; they asked no news ; but for two hours they clamored “town lots ” and “ real estate.”

They told us, one and all, separately and combinedly, that “ Brown had made forty thousand in six weeks, — town lots. That house there yonder, white, and green blinds, — that house belongs to a man worth sixty thousand dollars ; made it all in San Diego town lots ; the healthiest place in California. A man came here six weeks ago quite dead with consumption ; he had gained fourteen pounds since; he could be seen at any time in the Washington Saloon.”

For two hours this babel raged on our decks. It came high noon. Suddenly speculation was reminded of its stomach. It scrambled again over the side and paddled for the shore. The Wayanda was once more quiet.

In the afternoon we went on shore. We found speculation now busy with the Wayanda’s affairs. No government vessel had been in port for many months. It meant something beside looking after the revenue. A new survey was to be made of the harbor. No. Fortifications were to be erected on the island opposite. Not that either. There was something up regarding a United States claim to the very land on which stood New San Diego. All this was hinted at in conversation.

The officers of the Wayanda were aggravatingly non-committal as to their purpose in coming. Captain W—— dropped here and there a word, making the mystery, if anything, deeper. Speculation and curiosity went into corners and tore its hair with vexation. Yet for days the Wayanda rode composedly at anchor. The quartermaster paced the quarter-deck, a head occasionally peered over the bulwarks. Tom, the cutter’s cat, in the evening twilight crouched at the end of the spanker boom and gazed reflectively on that unhappy town, full of restless real-estate speculators. When he walked back on deck his gait and manner seemed to indicate how fortunate he felt himself in being an official cat, all above the petty cares and anxieties of business. And from the cat to the captain, the Wayanda kept all her purposes and mysteries to herself with becoming official dignity and reserve. Even the brass guns on deck, shrouded in sable tarpaulins, seemed to say, “We know our business. When it is time we ’ll speak.”

What had she come for ? To look after the revenue. To catch smugglers. And when a long, low, black vessel with four twenty-four pounders, one sixtyeight pounder, forty odd men, and the revenue flag at the spanker gaff, thus advertised herself plainly to those who cared not to render unto Cæsar the things belonging to Cæsar, would not every smuggler hoist a press of sail, bear straight for San Diego, land his Contraband, and throw himself lovingly into the Wayanda’s embrace ?

Both Old and New San Diego seemed full of restless, unhappy people. The only amusement was in riding from “Old Town” to “New Town,” and from “New Town ” back to “ Old Town.” Two lines of omnibuses ; trips every hour, fare twenty-five cents. We made one trip. Our omnibus took its departure from the principal hotel of New San Diego. We supposed it had really started for “ Old Town.” No ; it drove hither and thither, from one hotel to another, from saloon to store, from store to saloon, on the hunt for passengers. It explored new streets thinly spotted with new houses and thickly crowded with vacant lots. It spied men and women from afar, ran them down, captured them, picked them up, and hoisted them on board. All this took over an hour. We saw every inch of the new city. Then we started for Old Town.

Captain W——, Lieutenant B——, and myself occupied the back seat; I was in the middle. Directly in front sat a young lady, apparently a Western young woman. Her seat had a sort of swinging back, formed by a strap. She had one side a mother, on the other a venomous-looking cavalier; he seemed from Texas. His features were thin and sallow ; there was a villanous slant in his eye ; he wore a linen duster and a felt hat. The but of a six-shooter protruded from the back of the duster. I felt that his pockets and every aperture of his garments were full of derringers and bowie-knives. The stage jolted, rolled, and rocked. Every jolt dashed that young woman reclining against the strap all over me, seated as I was behind her. Her Texas cavalier glanced wickedly at me out of a corner of his green eye. I tried in vain to avoid these collisions. I tried to compress myself farther into the rear of that Concord coach. Yet the young woman did not second my efforts as she might. She allowed herself to be dashed. I anathematized the interior construction of all Concord coaches. It was a terrible ride. I perspired. The rascally captain and his subordinate hunted for pins, found them, and stuck them into me, that I might involuntarily reciprocate the young woman’s testimonials. I remained immovable, but exuded a cold sweat; and so this load of misery rolled into Old San Diego. The young woman from the West, her mother, and the arsenalled cavalier from Texas got out. I never saw them again ; I never wish to.

Old San Diego consists mostly of a square of one-storied Mexican adobes, a plaza, a flag-staff, an old, brass, verdigrised Spanish cannon, covered with heraldic devices and Latin inscriptions ; a Catholic church, and an open-air, three-belled belfry, whose morning chimes rolled sweetly over the bay. There is a river too, but it was dried up at the time of our visit. There was a calaboose, being a sheet-iron cage, bars in front, two men inside awaiting trial for stealing cattle. They were new-comers, had taken up a ranch, were not acquainted with the customs of the Lower Country.

We rode back to New San Diego. This seemed the common impulse which seized all comers from New to Old San Diego. The same impulse laid hold of all residents, temporary or otherwise, of Old Town who visited New Town. The result was, the two lines of coaches were kept constantly full of disgusted people passing and repassing each other.

There was but one return passenger. He soon made it known to us that he was a San Diego County supervisor. He aired the county secrets. They had no jail; criminals depended on the hospitality of Los Angelos, over one hundred miles distant, for such accommodation. There was no money for repair of county roads. There was no money for anything, save to pay officials. They, said he, took everything and rendered no account. Nor could they be ousted; Sindbad’s old man of the sea was never more firmly glued to Sindbad’s back that they to the county. They had held office from all time. They calculated so to do. It was their business.

Before our departure we were invited to a ball at Old San Diego. The officers put on their best uniforms. One object in the creation and maintenance of revenue and naval officers is that they attend balls in uniform. It is often not the man, but the buttons, that shine.

Not being an officer, I had no uniform. Hence I could not shine. It was decreed in the wardroom, and the decree was sanctioned in the cabin, that I should attend in uniform. The captain, the lieutenants, the engineers, started for their trunks. Old uniforms were dragged out. I was by degrees built up in the pants of one, the coat of another, the vest and cap of another. I was dressed in compartments. They invented for me an office and a title. I became the ship’s surgeon. They called me Doctor. All this felt very queer. I was never in blue and brass before, nor a doctor.

We went on shore, and were met by Captain P——, “ of the army,” with an ambulance and four mules for conveyance to Old San Diego. To the captain I was introduced as “ Doctor.” I commenced to feel like a forgery, a medical forgery.

Arrived at Old San Diego, they introduced me promiscuously and recklessly as “ Doctor.” A horrible fear beset me. Suppose the resident physician of the town should be absent, and some difficult and delicate case suddenly develop itself! I might be sent for. Such things had happened. How needlessly we may torment ourselves with supposition !

It came nine o’clock, and still no indications of the ball. We were shown to the sitting-room of the hotel. We sat there for a time in blue and brass revenue dignity. Then we became tired, sallied out, exhausted all the sights of the dingy, dark town in ten minutes, returned, showed ourselves and buttons at the hotel doorway, and again subsided into official dignity.

Ten o’clock ; still no symptoms of the promised ball. Something was the matter. In the earlier portion of the evening I had overheard some ominous remarks by the natives in the street. “ Ef they had n’t put on so much style, thar might have been a crowd thar!” I knew something of the social nature of these small California settlements. I detected the symptoms of a disease, prevalent from Siskiyon to San Diego. That was “ cliquism.”

In all small California towns there are from two to four cliques. The smaller the place the more bitter and antagonistic the cliques. Political and sectional proclivities have much to do with their creation and continuance.

So it was in Old San Diego. The ball to be given us originated with one clique. It became immediately the business of the other to defeat it. The opposing San Diego lords laid an embargo on their wives and daughters. They should not attend. The supply of the female element in Old San Diego was small. In fifteen minutes after this had been decreed, it was known all over town ; for Old San Diego is but little else save a large one-story house, built around a square. The hall had been lit, the fiddler was there ready for action. A few ladies waited in the anteroom. The revenue officers waited at the hotel. The “ Doctor ” waited. The principal manager was nearly beside himself. Not until the last moment had he suspected the trap now sprung on him. He ran distractedly hither and thither. He accosted the antagonistic conspirators. “ Were they not coming to the ball ? ” They were indifferent. They scarce knew there was to be a ball.

There was no ball ; but they gave us a supper, a good one. At this the masculine elements of either clique fraternized. The plot had succeeded. The ball had beed defeated. In the hour of victory, the opposition suddenly might have recollected that Old San Diego would be the chief sufferer. The reputation of Old San Diego in the matter of courtesy to strangers was in danger. Between the bickerings of cliquism, we, the invited guests, had fallen to the ground. Old and New San Diego were rival cities. New San Diego would make the most out of this slight to the revenue service and the United States Army,

So they gave us a supper.

At the table, I, the Wayanda’s “ Doctor,” was appropriately seated next the most prominent physician of Old San Diego, and to him I was introduced. I commenced perspiring with the soup. Of course, the original Jacobs Esculapius of Lower California talked shop. He asked after several professional acquaintances in San Francisco. I crawled out of that dilemma by saying I had just arrived from the Eastern States. I am a Californian of sixteen years’ standing. Then I clattered with fear in my boots, dreading the next inquiry. He approached the topic of medicine. I resolved immediately on a defence composed of one part stupidity, one part deafness, one part misapprehension. I prayed also for a little, just a little help in this hour of need. I did want to say to him, “ See here, doctor, I’m not the real thing at all, you know. I ’m only a Quaker gun, doctor, just got up by the boys to show off with.”

But that would never have done. The Wayanda’s wardroom and cabin counted on my sustaining the character well. To break down would have disgraced me for the remainder of the trip.

So whenever intuitively I felt he was about to aim a fresh medical question at me, I anticipated it by inquiring as to something as far removed from medicine as possible. I put on a modified boisterousness. The medico glanced at me suspiciously. He smelt the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Internally I was very miserable, I was torn to tatters. There was wine on the table : I was thankful when it commenced to take effect, and disperse the searching, concentrative inquiry of this dreadful doctor.

And when once I had opportunity to whisper in one of the ears of the wardroom that my position was a most try— ing one, and that all the powers of my mind were overtaxed in furnishing fiction for sustaining the situation, I was told that, as a newspaper correspondent, it was my duty and business and pleasure to furnish any amount of such matter for any possible emergency !

The “General” was at the supper. The General came among us vaguely during the earlier portion of the evening. In a certain store whither we had stepped a moment to make some purchases, there was a little of him, and a little more at the next, and before we had made the circuit of the town the General was on a free-and-easy, amiable, and amicable footing with our entire party. He was an old resident of Old San Diego. He represented the place that evening. He left no room for any other representative.

The General dealt only with principles. He secured a position at Captain W——’s right elbow, and he kept it. For ten minutes after we sat down to supper, the General plunged into the lowest depths of reflective inebriety. Then suddenly arousing, he bethought himself of attending to the guests. A vase of celery stood before him. He grasped the bunch, pulled it out, and stalk by stalk distributed it gravely to all within his reach. This done, he relapsed into another brief, silent interval of reflectiveness. He also at this time ate — much. Then he turned the entire current of his conversation toward Captain W——.

“ Cap'n,” said he, “ wha’s name your ship ? ”

“The Wayanda,” said Captain W—.

“Cap’n, I once had cousin in service. Zz name was John George Lee. Ever see ’im, cap’n ? ”

“It seems to me I have met some one of that name,” said Captain W——.

Here mournful recollections seized the General. “ Yes, poor fellow, dead and gone ! dead and gone ! Went down in a gale off Cape Hatteras and died of fever on coas Afriker in ’62. Cap'n, wha’s name your ship ? ”

“ The Wayanda,” said the captain.

After another interval of silence and large consumption, the General concentrated his attention on the clusters of grapes lying on the table ; and, although no one had reached dessert, he sternly handed each of us a bunch. They gave him an opportunity to open on the grape culture in Lower California.

“ Cap’n,” said he, “ wha’s name your ship?” It seemed impossible for the General to pursue any train of thought without reassurance as to the Wayanda’s rightful designation.

“ Cap’n,” said he, “ we raise a sperior grape ; people once had notion must irrigate grape-vines; all nonsense ; irgate nothin’ ; irgashun, — you see, — well, irgashun all nonsense, cos water’s bad thing for wine, anyway,— water gets too much into wine and so makes wine sour bout year b'fore grapes get ripe ! Cap’n, wha’s name your ship ? ”

Captain W——felt he had answered that question sufficiently. He half suspected the General of a drunken attempt to quiz him. There was a veiled flash of temper in his eye.

I was rejoiced : I had now a companion in misery. This was an offset to my prying medical friend. However, there was the inevitable answer to be given ; for the General, his head half turned, awaited it, and the captain, like a school-boy reciting his most familiar lesson, replied, “ The Wayanda, sir.”

The mournful fate of John George Lee was again revived. The General forgot he had once before broached this subject. He introduced his cousin as “ poor John George.”

“ Cap’n,” he asked, “ you mus’ have met with a fren mine who was in service, John George. Died of coas fever in Afriker in ’58.”

In this abbreviated name Captain W—— did not recognize the John George Lee introduced an hour previous. No, he had no recollection of such a person.

The General mused. Our captain glanced uneasily at the clock, calculating how many hours longer this torture was likely to endure. The General’s memory suddenly brightened. “ Why cap ’n,” said he, “ you said you knew ’im, my fren, John George Lee.”

“ Yes, certainly, I knew John George Lee,” said Captain W——.

“An’ you dunno John George?” asked the General, in a suspicious manner.

“ O, both names refer to the same person ! ” replied the captain.

A knowing grin, an inebriated grin, overspread the General’s face. He saw the cause of misapprehension. His hand fell upon the captain’s shoulder in all the confidence and fellowship of inebriety. The captain shuddered, I rejoiced.

“Cer’nly,” said the General, and the smile went straight out from his features. A gloom of mournful recollection instantly supplanted it. “ My poor fren, John George Lee. He was a man, a sailor, sir ; died at his pos’, foundered off Hatteras in a gale. Cap ’n, wha’s name your ship ? ”

The captain, half amused, half enraged, like a dutiful child once more repeated his lesson, and said, “ The Wayanda, sir.” He squirmed, too, as behind him he felt his lieutenants nudging each other. They were enjoying the “ old man’s ” situation.

The General with some effort now rose to his feet. His tall form bent like a reed over the table. He surveyed us gloomily. He filled full a glass with champagne. He filled it more than full. He was indifferent then to trifles. He spoke, “ Genmelen, I propose a toas’. Here’s — here’s to the Wyanner an’ her commanner ! ”

The “ toas ” was drank standing and in silence. There was here and there a sort of splutter over the beverage, and not a dry eye in the house.

The feast was at last over. It proved no compensation for the lack of the ball. Our buttons had glittered for nothing. Who cares to shine merely for a parcel of men ?

We left Old San Diego about two o’clock in the morning. At five the Wayanda’s boilers and escape-pipes gave forth hisses and fizzlings of preparation. At six the anchor was coming on board in orderly man-o’-war style. At seven Old and New San Diego were gliding from sight and becoming only things of memory. It was a dark, misty morning, with a dash of rain now and then. The waves were boisterous, green-tinged, whitecapped. There was an extra roll on the bar off the harbor, and the engines labored now fitfully and hurriedly, now slowly and laboriously, as the propeller’s screw was lifted high out of water or deeply submerged. Openly, our captain avowed that he longed to have the General and his stomach on board, that he might lie on the raging: bar with him for a few hours. But this world is not for the gratification of all our desires. The Wayanda was now headed direct for her old anchorage off Long Wharf. In four days we were there. We found San Francisco sitting on her accustomed sand-hills, anti enveloped in her usual fog. We brought back no smugglers, — only remembrances, chiefly of Dr. Smith, barber and physician, and the General.

Prentice Mulford.