CHAPTER XII
AMERICAN COMPETITION WITH GREAT BRITAIN IN THE CHINA TRADE
THE California clippers, after discharging their cargoes at San Francisco, either returned in ballast round Cape Horn, or continued their voyages across the Pacific and loaded cargoes at Asiatic ports for the United States or Great Britain.
Some of the ships which sailed to China from San Francisco, raced across the Pacific in ballast, touching at the Sandwich Islands only long enough to back the main yard off Diamond Head and send the mails ashore with perhaps a missionary or two. In those days the Kanuka maidens used to swim off alongside the ships, and they were probably the nearest approach to mermaids that has ever been known in real life. The Stag-Hound made the passage from San Francisco to Honolulu in 9, and the Flying Cloud and Surprise in 12 days each. The Flying Cloud sailed 374 miles in twenty-four hours, the day after leaving San Francisco, with a fresh whole-sail breeze and smooth sea, under skysails and royal studdingsails. The Southern Cross made the passage from San Francisco to Hong-kong in 32, and the Game-Cock in 35 days, the run of the Game-Cock from Honolulu to Hong-kong in 19
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