CALIFORNIA. 4)9 



We must leave it to our successors, as our prede- 

 cessors have done to us, to collect more satisfactory 

 information respecting the natives of California and 

 their languages.* We had proposed this as our 

 object in a journey which we intended to make to 

 some of the nearest missions. Business however 

 of another kind kept us at San Francisco, and the 

 period fixed for our departure came without our 

 being able to afford time for this journey ; for tlie rest 

 we refer to tlie accounts of La Peyrouse and Van- 

 couver, which we found very correct. Since their 

 time there has been but little change in California. 

 A fort, erected in a good situation, guards the har- 

 bour of San Francisco. The Presidio is new built 

 With stone, and covered with tiles. The building 

 of the chapel has not been begun. In the missions 

 they build in the same manner, and the barracks 

 of the Indians at San Francisco are of similar con- 

 struction. An artillerist has erected mills in the 

 missions, worked by horses ; but they are now for 

 the most part out of order, and cannot be repaired. 

 At San Francisco is a stone which a horse turns 

 w^ithout mechanism over another stone, the only 

 mill in order. The Indian women rub the corn 

 between two stones for immediate use. A wind- 

 mill of the Russian American Company's settlement 

 creates astonishment, but does not find imitators. 



* De Lamon has given valuable information in La Peyrouse's 

 Voyage, on the languages of the Achastlians, and Eclemaches, 

 near Monterey. For further particulars, see Adelunge, Mith- 

 vidates, 3, 3. p. 182. 



VOL. III. E 



