with precious lives, and freight liable to get badly scattered when cast ashore by the waves, be lured to destruction? There have been many wrecks along this rocky coast, and underwriters seldom secure much of the cargo.
There are no real harbors between San Francisco and San Diego, about four hundred miles south, and very few places where a vessel can in the fairest weather run alongside a wharf to load or unload. At Pigeon Point there is a semicircular bay, partially sheltered from the northern winds, but the heavy swells rolling in from the southwest prevent any wharves being erected. Out about two hundred yards from the shore is a high monument-like rock, rising to a level with the steep rock bluff which half incloses the bay. From the bluff to the top of this rock stretches a heavy wire cable, kept taut by a capstan. A vessel rounding the reef runs into the sheltered cove under this hawser, and then casts anchor. Slings running down on the hawser are rigged, and her cargo lifted from her deck load by load, run up into the air fifty to one hundred feet, then hauled in shore, and landed upon the top of the bluff. Lumber, hay in bales like cotton, fruit, potatoes, vegetables, dairy products, etc., etc., are in like manner run out and lowered at the right moment upon the vessel's decks. If a southwester comes on she slips her anchor and runs out to sea till it is over. This system is in extensive use along the coast, though in some places lighters and tugs are employed to load and unload.
This part of the coast has a terrible name, and
