THE CALIFORNIAN PENINSULA. 381 
In order to be exempt from labor, or to escape the punishment for gross 
misdeeds, the Californians sometimes counterfeit dangerously sick or dying 
persons. Many of those who were carried to the mission in such a feigned state 
by their comrades received a sound flogging, which suddenly restored them to 
health. Without mentioning all the cases that fell under my notice, I will 
speak of two individuals who represented dying persons so well that I did not 
hesitate to give them extreme unction. Another really frightened me by pre- 
tending to be infected with the smallpox, which actually raged in the neighboring 
mission, causing its priest for three months, day and night, a vast deal of trouble 
and care, and keeping him almost constantly on horseback. A fourth, whose 
name was Clement, seemed also resolved to give up the ghost. With him, 
however, the difficulty was that he had never seen a dying person, not even his 
wife, whom I had buried, and often visited during her sickness, without ever 
finding the husband at home. But having witnessed the death of many cows 
and oxen, which his arrows had brought down, he imitated the dying beast so 
naturally, by lolling out his tongue and licking his lips, that he went afterwards 
always by the name of Clemente vacca or Cow Clement. 
Nothing excites the admiration of the Californians. They look upon the 
most splendid ecclesiastic garments, embroidered with gold and silver, with as 
much indifference as though the material consisted of wool and the galoons of 
common flax. They would rather see a piece of meat than the rarest manu- 
factures of Milan and Lyons, and resemble, in that respect, a certain Canadian 
who had been in France, and remarked, after his return to Canada, that nothing 
in Paris had pleased him better than the butcher-shops.* 
They are not in the least degree susceptible of disgust, but will touch and 
handle the uncleanest objects as though they were roses, killing spiders with 
their fists, and taking hold of toads without aversion. ‘hey use as a covering 
the filthiest rag, and wear it until it rots on their bodies. In person they are 
exceedingly dirty, and waste hardly any time in decorating and embellishing 
themselves. I must mention here, also, that they are in the habit of washing 
themselves with urine, which renders their persons very disagreeable, as I have 
often experienced when I had to confess them. I was informed by reliable 
people that they eat a certain kind of large spiders, and likewise the vermin 
which they take from each other’s heads; but I never saw them doing it: 
whereas I saw them frequently fetch their maize porridge at noon in a half- 
eleaned turtle-shell which they had used the whole morning to carry the dung 
from the folds of the sheep and goats. 
Concerning their improvement by the introduction of the Christian religion, 
I am unable to bestow much praise upon those among whom I lived seventeen 
years, during which period I had sufficient opportunity to become thoroughly 
acquainted with their character; but I must confess, to my greatest affliction, 
that the seed of the Divine Word has borne but little fruit among them; for 
this seed fell into hearts already obdurated in vice from their very infancy by 
seduction and bad example, which all pains and exertions on the part of the 
missionary were unavailing to remove. The occasions for evil-doing, among 
young and old, are of daily occurrence, and numberless. The parents them- 
selves give the worst example, and the Spanish soldiers, cowherds, and a few 
others who come to the country for the purpose of pearl-fishing and mining, 
contribute not a little to increase vice among the native population. ‘The mo- 
INQ AE SIAL LR ALE SE EN Ne REG RT 
* Mr. Catlin relates a similar circumstance of a party of Iowa Indians that were exhibited 
in London. After their first drive through the city, ‘‘they returned to their lodgings in 
great glee, and amused us at least for an hour with their first impressions of London, the 
leading, striking feature of which, and the one that seemed to afford them the greatest satis- 
faction, was the quantity of fresh meat that they saw in every street hanging up at the doors 
and windows.”—Catlin’s Notes of Eight Years’ Travels and Residence in Europe. New 
York, 1848: vol. ii, p. 9. 
