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Show 272 PERSONAL ADVENTURES it~ and on entering beheld a melancholy spectacle. On one side of it, stretched upon a few boxes covered with blankets, and 'vhich did service as a bed, lay extended the corpse of a tall, finely-formed, and once handsome young man ; for disease and death ' though they had set their terrible stamp upon his countenance, and distorted it with suffering, had not destroyed the beauty and regularity of his features. I-Iis body was black and swollen, and covered with angry blains; and his tongue, which protruded fearfully through his blistered lips, had more than half disappeared before the ravages of the fearful malady that had killed him. He was from New York, and had once been the possessor of considerable property, ,vhich, unfortunately losing, he had determined to emigrate to Cali· fornia, in the hope of rapidly acquiring wealth by the practice of his c~lling as an assayer of gold, concluding that he was likely to procure ready and profitable einployment. He left his wife and family behind him, and embarked, with n1any others, on board the Brooklyn. IN CALIFORNIA. 273 But it appeared that they had set sail fro1n New York with an insufficient supply of provisions, of which fact the passengers did not become aware until they had been some time a.t sea. Nearly the whole of them were ' m consequence, attacked with scurvy; but the captain refused to put in at Rio, Valparaiso, and Callao, where the necessary remedies and a fresh stock of provisions rnight have been procured. Finding him inexorable to the appeal made to his humanity, they rnade up a purse of 500 dollars, with 'vhich they hoped to tempt his cupidity; still he refused. The result was, that five of the passengers perished of this fearful malady, and were thrown over~ oard ; the rest, including the young man m question, were landed at San Francisco in a state verging on dissolution. The deceased had already lost part of his tongue, and turned black before he was set ashore to die '· and it seems he had experienced the worst possible treatment at the hands of the captain, who accused him of feiO'ning sickness· and • 0 ' ' llldeed, had acted with extreme inhumanity to N5 |