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At either horn of the bay the railway line, cut just above high water-mark, ran round a shoulder of piled rocks, and disappeared. "You see there's always a breeze here," said Hooper, opening the door as the engine left us in the siding on the sand, and the strong south-easter buffeting under Elsie's Peak dusted sand into our tickey beer. Presently he sat down to a file full of spiked documents.
In the hands of an enterprising people, what a country this might be! we are ready to say. Yet how long would a people remain so, in such a country? 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 south-easter, and had been lying at San Diego to repair and take in her cargo.
To-day the weather is on its good behavior; the south-easter rests on its aery nest As still as a brooding dove; and sun and sea are doing their best to show off the queer little straggling town creeping up the low sandy hills that lie before us. I am assured that Port Elizabeth is a flourishing mercantile place.
We drank nothing else at the Admiral's. The kind old sailor has given me a dozen of wine, which is coming up here in a waggon, and will be most welcome. I can't tell you how kind he and Lady Walker were; I was there three weeks, and hope to go again when the south-easter season is over and I can get out a little.
It was now the middle of April, and the south-easter season was nearly over; and the light, regular trade-winds, which blow down the coast, began to set steadily in, during the latter part of each day. Against these, we beat slowly up to Santa Barbara a distance of about ninety miles in three days.
Nothing of note occurred while we were lying here, except that an attempt was made to repair the small Mexican brig which had been cast away in a south-easter, and which now lay up, high and dry, over one reef of rocks and two sand-banks.
The transitions are so sudden, that, with the thermometer at 76 degrees, you must not go out without taking a thick warm cloak; you may walk into a south-easter round the first spur of the mountain, and be cut in two. In short, the air is cold and bracing, and the sun blazing hot; those whom that suits, will do well.
The weather was cloudy and the sea rough; a south-easter blew with violence, but it was easy to get out of the Mersey. At twelve o'clock nothing had yet been received. Dr. Clawbonny marched up and down in agitation, looking through his telescope, gesticulating, impatient for the sea, as he said. He felt moved, though he struggled against it. Shandon bit his lips till the blood came.
This they had ample cause to regret, for a severe south-easter set in during the night and rendered communication with the shore impossible for several days. Port Elizabeth, although then a thriving town, had not yet earned the title "the Liverpool of South Africa." I doubt as to whether its commercial self-righteousness had developed to the extent of adopting the sobriquet "the Honest Port."
The first impression which California had made upon us was very disagreeable: the open roadstead of Santa Barbara; anchoring three miles from the shore; running out to sea before every south-easter; landing in a high surf; with a little dark-looking town, a mile from the beach; and not a sound to be heard, or anything to be seen, but Sandwich Islanders, hides, and tallow-bags.
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