»Two Years Before The Mast

After an interval of seven or eight years, I picked up Richard Henry Dana's workmanlike de-romanticisation of seafaring life in the mid-nineteenth century. Two Years Before the Mast has many thrilling passages, and much exciting nautical jargon: trowsers included, but mostly the names of the various sails, pieces of rigging, and bits o' ship: ges-warps; the efficient roband for "rope-band"; the ubiquitous oakum, and the unwelcome task of "picking" it; binnacle; studding-sails; usw.

His description of the California coast and Santa Barbara is beautiful.

Jan. 14th, 1835, we came to anchor in the spacious bay of Santa Barbara, after a voyage of one hundred and fifty days from Boston.
...
In the middle of this crescent, directly opposite the anchoring ground, lie the mission and town of Santa Barbara, on a low, flat plain, but little above the level of the sea, covered with grass, though entirely without trees, and surrounded on three sides by an amphitheatre of mountains, which slant off to the distance of fifteen or twenty miles. The mission stands a little back of the town, and is a large building, or rather collection of buildings, in the center of which is a high tower, with a belfry of five bells; and the whole, being plastered, makes quite a show at a distance, and is the mark by which vessels come to anchor. The town lies a little nearer to the beach—about half a mile from it—and is composed of one-story houses built of brown clay—some of them plastered—with red tiles on the roofs. I should judge that there were about an hundred of them; and in the midst of them stands the Presidio, or fort, built of the same materials, and apparently but little stronger. The town is certainly finely situated, with a bay in front, and an amphitheatre of hills behind. The only thing which diminishes its beauty is, that the hills have no large trees upon them, they having been all burnt by a great fire which swept them off about a dozen years before, and they had not yet grown up again. The fire was described to me by an inhabitant, as having been a very terrible and magnificent sight. The air of the whole valley was so heated that the people were obliged to leave the town and take up their quarters for several days upon the beach.

From this book I learn that sempstress is a synonym with seamstress.