Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/271

 Our botanist, Dr. Pickering, while digging up a rare plant, felt something brush against him behind. Turning around he saw, sitting on his hind legs watching him, a large grizzly bear; feeling a peculiar sensation coming  over him, he pretended not to notice his bearship, who  still sat there watching his every movement. Finally, the bear’s patience gave out, and he walked leisurely off, to the great relief of the doctor.

Having finished our work up here, we returned to the ship, where we found the brig Porpoise, schooner Flying  Fish, and the brig Oregon, late the Thomas Perkins. She was purchased by Commodore Wilkes, at Columbia  River, for the purpose of carrying home the officers and  crew of the Peacock. While here, we lived on bear meat, wild game, fresh fish, and a thin cake made of coarse Indian meal, baked on a piece of sheet iron. Vegetables were scarce, the Spaniards being as lazy as the Indians, and neither troubled themselves about raising any.

Some of these Spanish families were very large, fifteen to twenty odd. Did it ever enter your mind how nice it would be to have twenty sisters, or ten sisters and ten  brothers? They learn to ride as early as the Sandwich Islanders learn to swim. Large numbers die from falls from the horses. They are generally robust, and left to take care of themselves, and run about naked and  dirty.

Both sexes were equally fond of gambling, horse- racing, cock-fighting, bull and bear baiting, and dancing, which almost always ended in a row, especially at their  weddings.