High Seas to High Stakes, or Around Cape Horn to the Gold Rush
by
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The great and distinctive characteristics of the Brazilians are its slaves and slavery, and one cannot help but shudder to have such sights before his mind, so degrading to humanity, to chain human beings down to bondage. Only think of the sin and misery it produces! Husbands, wives and children separated from each other; this accursed traffic carried on by men and nations professing Christianity. It is a dark stain upon the American people and should at once be abolished or we should remain silent about our boasted liberties and freedom. Slaves do about all the work and carry all the burden in Rio; they go almost naked and form four-fifths of the population. They go together in gangs of twenty or thirty with a leader who carries a rattle with which he keeps time, causing them to move along on a dog trot. All the coffee taken to and from the shipping is transported on the heads of the slaves in bags weighing 150 to 200 pounds. They must be very strong in the neck and shoulders. Going along the street one day I saw one with a crate of crockery born on his head which took four men to place there. Poor fellow! Many slaves are allowed to find employment for themselves and are required to earn from 25 to 50 cents a day, the same amount being required to pay their masters. Any surplus they can make belongs to themselves.
One will scarcely see a lady of distinction walking the streets. In the afternoon and evening, they resort to the balconies of their homes to take the air and gaze at passers-by. Nobody is friendly to foreigners. We are leaving tomorrow.
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My dear Wife:
As the mail steamer leaves tomorrow for Panama I improve the opportunity of writing you to let you know I am well and that you and my Little Ones and friends are as dear and near to me as ever. But Wife, what can be the reason I have not received any letters from you? The next steamer is expected everyday and I hope to receive two or three letters from you. I sent your father the Weekly Alta Californian, one of the papers printed here. I paid 50 cts for it and 5 cts postage, so you can see there is some difference in the prices at home and in California. (In Addison, the cost of sending a letter to Ellsworth fifty miles away was ten cents; to Boston 350 miles distance, eighteen and three quarters cents; to New York five hundred fifty miles, twenty-five cents.) The price of a meal of victuals is from 75 cts to $1.25 and none of the best at that. There is some sickness here of the dysentery nature and unless one takes care of himself this complaint is apt to go rather hard. I understand that some four or five of the Machias Maine) folks have died. One or two had consumption and were sick on the way out.
Last Friday there was a great fire in the city that destroyed most of the businesses, and it is estimated that five acres including the streets were burnt and the loss at 5 millions! Many a poor fellow who was rich in the morning has not a place to lay his head at night, so you see, Wife, that riches is not a thing to be depended upon even in California. I think if I have my health in two years, I may do well, for I think nearly all depends on health, industry, prudence, good habits and morals, and the four latter I shall endeavor to live up to, and the former (health) trust in the hands of our Heavenly Father who, if we are obedient children, will watch over and protect us.
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About the Book
Hail and sleet were so hard it pinned us down to the rigging. The bark plunged madly into a tremulous sea throwing sailors on the deck into water up to their necks. Fury of the wind defied efforts to haul down the sail.
Jared Coffin Nash and fifty five other men sailing on a 104 foot bark shared the hold full of lumber, machinery, tools, pigs, chickens and turkeys enough to last the six month journey from Maine to California around treacherous Cape Horn. The call of the gold rush in 1848 sent thousands of Argonauts on an inordinate chase, exciting though disappointing for most. For these journeymen, it was a life-threatening adventure that built or broke these men seeking their fortunes.
Jared Nash kept a diary while on this great adventure and sent letters home to his wife Leah. These papers were found a hundred years later and are the basis for this book. The author's late husband was Jared's great grandson.
About the Author
The author, a native New Englander, became a writer of children's books when she was a student at Florida Southern College taking a course in Creative Writing. She graduated at age 80 and has since taken a correspondence course in writing and has had several stories printed in newspapers. For years, she thought about publishing the diary and letters written by her husband's great grandfather who described his trip around Cape Horn. Her recent courses gave her the confidence to turn the writings into a non-fiction book combining history with biography, a true story mixed with imaginary dialogue, disasters and bravery.
Ruth S. Nash is now a resident of Harbour Heights, Florida, but spends three summer months at her seven-room log cabin overlooking Wolfeboro Bay, New Hampshire. She makes an annual pilgrimage way down east to her husband's ancester's summer cottage on Cape Split, Addison, on the Maine coast.