⸺⁠Crowded in the rank and narrow ship⁠— Housed on the wild sea with wild usages⁠— Whate’er in the inland dales the land conceals Of fair and exquisite, O! nothing, nothing, Do we behold of that in our...

I am unwilling to present this narrative to the public without a few words in explanation of my reasons for publishing it. Since Mr. Cooper’s1 Pilot and Red Rover, there have been so many stories of s...

The fourteenth of August was the day fixed upon for the sailing of the brig Pilgrim on her voyage from Boston round Cape Horn to the western coast of North America. As she was to get underway early in...

The first day we passed at sea was the Sabbath. As we were just from port, and there was a great deal to be done on board, we were kept at work all day, and at night the watches were set, and everythi...

As we had now a long “spell” of fine weather, without any incident to break the monotony of our lives, there can be no better place to describe the duties, regulations, and customs of an American merc...

After speaking the Carolina, on the 21st August, nothing occurred to break the monotony of our life until Friday, September 5th, when we saw a sail on our weather (starboard) beam.47 She proved to be ...

Wednesday, Nov. 5th. The weather was fine during the previous night, and we had a clear view of the Magellan Clouds, and of the Southern Cross. The Magellan Clouds consist of three small nebulae in th...

Monday, Nov. 19th. This was a black day in our calendar. At seven o’clock in the morning, it being our watch below, we were aroused from a sound sleep by the cry of “All hands ahoy! a man overboard!” ...

We continued sailing along with a fair wind and fine weather until Tuesday, Nov. 25th, when at daylight we saw the island of Juan Fernandez, directly ahead, rising like a deep blue cloud out of the se...

As we saw neither land nor sail from the time of leaving Juan Fernandez until our arrival in California, nothing of interest occurred except our own doing on board. We caught the southeast trades, and...

California extends along nearly the whole of the western coast of Mexico, between the gulf of California in the south and the bay of Sir Francis Drake99 on the north, or between the 22nd and 38th degr...

This night, after sundown, it looked black at the southward and eastward, and we were told to keep a bright lookout. Expecting to be called up, we turned in early. Waking up about midnight, I found a ...

We got clear of the islands before sunrise the next morning, and by twelve o’clock were out of the canal, and off Point Conception, the place where we first made the land upon our arrival. This is the...

The next day being Sunday, which is the liberty day among merchantmen, when it is usual to let a part of the crew go ashore, the sailors had depended upon a day on land, and were already disputing who...

The next day, the cargo having been entered in due form, we began trading. The trade room was fitted up in the steerage, and furnished out with the lighter goods, and with specimens of the rest of the...

After a few days, finding the trade beginning to slacken, we hove our anchor up, set our topsails, ran the stars and stripes up to the peak, fired a gun, which was returned from the Presidio, and left...

For several days the captain seemed very much out of humor. Nothing went right, or fast enough for him. He quarrelled with the cook, and threatened to flog him for throwing wood on deck; and had a dis...

The next day being Sunday, after washing and clearing decks, and getting breakfast, the mate came forward with leave for one watch to go ashore, on liberty. We drew lots, and it fell to the larboard, ...

The next sound we heard was “All hands ahoy!” and looking up the scuttle, saw that it was just daylight. Our liberty had now truly taken flight, and with it we laid away our pumps, stockings, blue jac...

The next Sunday was Easter Sunday, and as there had been no liberty at San Pedro, it was our turn to go ashore and misspend another Sabbath. Soon after breakfast, a large boat, filled with men in blue...

Here was a change in my life as complete as it had been sudden. In the twinkling of an eye, I was transformed from a sailor into a “beachcomber” and a hide curer; yet the novelty and the comparative i...

After we had been a few weeks on shore, and had begun to feel broken into the regularity of our life, its monotony was interrupted by the arrival of two vessels from the windward. We were sitting at d...

We kept up a constant connection with the Presidio, and by the close of the summer I had added much to my vocabulary, beside having made the acquaintance of nearly everybody in the place, and acquired...

Saturday, July 18th. This day, sailed the Mexican hermaphrodite brig, Fazio, for San Blas and Mazatlan. This was the brig which was driven ashore at San Pedro in a southeaster, and had been lying at S...

Tuesday, Sept. 8th. This was my first day’s duty on board the ship; and though a sailor’s life is a sailor’s life wherever it may be, yet I found everything very different here from the customs of the...

Sunday, Oct. 11th. Set sail this morning for the leeward; passed within sight of San Pedro, and, to our great joy, did not come to anchor, but kept directly on to San Diego, where we arrived and moore...

Sunday, November 1st. Sailed this day (Sunday again), for Santa Barbara, where we arrived on the 5th. Coming round St. Buenaventura, and nearing the anchorage, we saw two vessels in port, a large full...

Our place of destination had been Monterey, but as we were to the northward of it when the wind hauled ahead, we made a fair wind for San Francisco. This large bay, which lies in latitude 37° 58′, was...

The only other vessel in port was the Russian government bark, from Asitka, mounting eight guns (four of which we found to be Quakers),206 and having on board the ex-governor, who was going in her to ...

Monday, Feb. 1st. After having been in port twenty-one days, we sailed for San Pedro, where we arrived on the following day, having gone “all fluking,” with the weather clew of the mainsail hauled up,...

We turned in early, knowing that we might expect an early call; and sure enough, before the stars had quite faded, “All hands ahoy!” and we were turned to, heaving out ballast. A regulation of the por...

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...

There now began to be a decided change in the appearance of things. The days became shorter and shorter; the sun running lower in its course each day, and giving less and less heat; and the nights so ...

In our first attempt to double the Cape, when we came up to the latitude of it, we were nearly seventeen hundred miles to the westward, but, in running for the straits of Magellan, we stood so far to ...

It is usual, in voyages round the Cape from the Pacific, to keep to the eastward of the Falkland Islands; but as it had now set in a strong, steady, and clear southwester, with every prospect of its l...

The same day, I met with one of those narrow escapes, which are so often happening in a sailor’s life. I had been aloft nearly all the afternoon, at work, standing for as much as an hour on the fore t...

From the latitude of the West Indies, until we got inside the Bermudas, where we took the westerly and southwesterly winds, which blow steadily off the coast of the United States early in the autumn, ...

Friday, Sept. 16th. Lat. 38° N., long. 69° 00′ W. A fine southwest wind; every hour carrying us nearer in toward land. All hands on deck at the dog watch, and nothing talked about, but our getting in;...

I trust that they who have followed me to the end of my narrative, will not refuse to carry their attention a little farther, to the concluding remarks which I here present to them. This chapter is wr...

It was in the winter of 1835⁠–⁠6 that the ship Alert, in the prosecution of her voyage for hides on the remote and almost unknown coast of California, floated into the vast solitude of the Bay of San ...

Mr. Cooper. James Fenimore Cooper, 1789⁠–⁠1851, was the first American novelist to attract wide attention. His Indian stories were based upon knowledge gained from residence in a frontier settlement i...