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Show 228 PERSONAL ADVENTURES Having completed my work on board the California, to the satisfaction of my employer, I took advantage of an opportunity to return to San Francisco, afforded by six of the crew taking a holiday ashore. We encountered a heavy current and a strong wind, which, in spite of our strenuous efforts to make the " Point," drove us son1e three miles to the north-west of it; and I found that landing in boats was not generally an easy matter, the beach being shingly, and in some parts very rocky. We effected our object at last, getting thoroughly wetted in our attempts to get on shore; my blankets, &c.-which, by the way, I had to carry for a distance of four miles-having already been soaked by the washing of the sea into the boat. The journey proved a most uncomfortable and fatiguing one, owing to the depth and looseness of the sand, and the irregularity of the route. The first person of my acquaintance that I met, chanced to be Antoine. I encountered him in the middle of the to,vn ; and, notwith· standing he was a man of colour, I saluted r IN CALIFORNIA. 229 the kind-hearted fellow with a friendly grasp of the hand. I make this rernark, not by way of casting any reproach upon colour, but because I could not yield to the American prejudice in this respect; although this act of recognition attracted the contemptuous notice of the passers-by. I should be sorry to excuse myself for having given way to so natural an impulse. I only wish that hundreds of the white-skins I have known had possessed a tithe of the honesty and good nature of the negro Antoine. He rated me soundly for not having struck a more lucrative bargain, and really made me feel extremely simple. However, I told him that it was only paying for experience; though he seemed to imply, by the shake of the head with which he intirnated it was no business of his, that I ought not to have been so long in California without gaining that very necessary stock in trade. "An' what hin1 <YO in' to do now- eh, 0 massar ?" "I shall do what I told you it was my in- |