day morning, while Benicia's bells were chiming for early Mass,
we cast off from the wharf at Port Costa and towed down Sacramento.
Though loaded and in sea trim, we were still short of a proper crew, so
we brought up in 'Frisco Bay to complete our complement.

Days passed and the boarding-masters could give us no more than two
'rancheros' (who had once seen the sea from Sonoma Heights), and a
young coloured man, a sort of a seaman, who had just been discharged
from Oakland Jail. The Old Man paid daily visits to the Consul, who
could do nothing--there were no men. He went to the boarding-houses,
and had to put up with coarse familiarity, to drink beer with the scum
of all nations, to clap scoundrels on the back and tell them what sly
dogs they were. It was all of no use. The 'crimps' were
crippled--there were no men.

"Wa-al, Cap.," Daly would say to the Old Man's complaint, "what kin we
dew? I guess we kyan't make men, same's yewr bo'sin 'ud make
spunyarn.... Ain't bin a darned soul in this haouse fer weeks as cud
tell a clew from a crojeck. Th' ships is hangin' on ter ther men like
ole blue! Captens is a-given' em chickens an' soft-tack, be gosh, an'
dollars fer 'a drunk' on Sundays.... When they turns 'em to, it's,
'Naow, lads, me boys! When yew'r ready, me sons!' ... A month a-gone
it was, 'Out, ye swine! Turn aout, damn ye, an' get a move on!' ...
Ah, times is bad, Cap.; times is damn bad! I ain't fingered an advance
note since th' _Dharwar_ sailed--a fortnight ago! Hard times, I guess,
an' we kyan't club 'em aboard, same's we use ter!"

A hopeless quest, indeed, looking for sailormen ashore; but ships were
expected, and when the wind was in the West the Old Man would be up on
deck at daybreak, peering out towards the Golden Gate, longing for the
glad sight of an inward bounder, that would bring the sorely needed
sailors in from the sea.

A week passed, a week of fine weather, with two days of a rattling
nor'west wind that would have sent us on our way, free of the land,
with a smother of foam under the bows. All lost to us, for no ships
came in, and we lay at anchor, swinging ebb and flood--a useless hull
and fabric, without a crew to spread the canvas and swing the great
yards!

Every morning the Mate would put the windlass in gear and set
everything in readiness for breaking out the anchor; but when we saw no
tug putting off, and no harbour cat-boats tacking out from the shore
with sailors'