ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF CALIFORNIAN PENINSULA. $79 
The Californians do not readily confess a crime unless detected in the act, 
because they hardly comprehend the force of evidence, and are not at all 
ashamed of lying. A certain missionary sent a native to one of his colleagues 
with some loaves of bread and a letter stating their number. The messenger 
ate a part of the bread, and his theft was consequently discovered; another 
time, when he had to deliver four loaves, he ate two of them, but hid the 
accompanying letter under a stone while he was thus engaged, believing that 
his conduct would not be revealed this time, as the letter had not seen him in 
the act of eating the loaves. 
In the mission of St. Borgia the priest ordered his people one day to strew 
the way with some green herbs, because he was about to bring the holy sacra- 
ment to a sick person, and his order was promptly executed by them, but to 
the great damage of the missionary’s kitchen-garden, for they tore up all the 
aes salad, and whatever vegetables they found there, and threw them on 
the road. 
Yet, notwithstanding their incapacity and slow comprehension, they are, 
nevertheless, cunning, and show, in many cases, a considerable degree of crafti- 
ness. They will sell their poultry to the missionary at the beginning of a 
sickness, and afterwards exhibit a disposition to eat nothing but chicken-meat, 
till none of the fowls are left in the coop. A prisoner will feign a dangerous 
malady and ask for the last sacrament in order to be relieved from his fetters, 
and to find, subsequently, a chance to escape. They rob the missionary ina 
hundred ways, and sometimes in the most artful manner. If, for instance, one 
has pilfered the pantry and left it open in his haste, another one forthwith 
requests to be admitted to confession, in order to give the thief time for closing 
the door, and thus to remove all cause of suspicion on the part of the mis- 
sionary. They also invent stories and relate them to their priest for the pur- 
pose of frustrating a marriage engagement, that some other party may obtain 
the bride. These and many hundred similar tricks have actually been played 
by them, and show conclusively that they are well capable of reasoning when 
their self-interest or their needs demand it. 
The Californians are audacious and at the same time faint-hearted and timid 
inahigh degree. They climb to the top of the weak, trembling stems, sometimes 
thirty-six feet high, which are called cardones by the Spaniards, to look out for 
game, or mount an untamed horse, without bridle and saddle, and ride, during 
the night, upon roads which I was afraid to travel in the daytime. When new 
buildings are erected, they walk on the miserable, ill-constructed_scaffoldings 
with the agility of cats, or venture several leagues into the open sea on a bundle 
of brushwood, or the thin stem of a palm-tree, without thinking of any danger. 
But the report of a gun makes them forget their bows and arrows, and half a 
dozen soldiers are capable of checking several hundred Californians. 
Gratitude towards benefactors, respect for superiors, parents, and other rela- 
tions, and politeness in intercourse with fellow-men, are almost unknown to 
them.* They speak plainly, and pay compliments to no one. If one of them 
has received a present, he immediately turns his back upon the donor and 
walks off without saying a word, unless the Spanish phrase, Dus te lo pague, 
or, “God reward you,” has been previously, by a laborious process, enforced 
upon his memory. 
Where there is no honor, shame is ever wanting, and therefore I always 
wondered how the word “ié,”’ that is, “to be ashamed,” had been introduced. 
eWO bb to ene) Fy Ba ee el te a te 
* According to Baegert’s own statement, (p. 309,) the forced departure of the Jesuit mis- 
sionaries from the peninsula caused great distress among the Indians, who expressed their 
grief by a general howling and weeping, which shows that the feelings of gratitude and 
attachment were not entirely wanting in their character, although selfishness may havo had 
a large share in the demonstration. The parting scene is well described in a few lines by 
W. lrving.—Ado. of Captain Bonneville, p. 33%. 
