ELDORADO 175 



the wilderness. However, what we eat is largely a mat- 

 ter of taste, habit, or education. 



Sometimes, at certain seasons of the year, a green 

 worm, two or three inches in length, made its appear- 

 ance in great numbers. These were gathered up and 

 eaten by the Diggers. It was hard to determine which 

 was most appreciated, the "hoppers" or the worms. 



These Indians were very poor material for mission- 

 ary work. They seemed incapable of making any 

 progress towards a better or higher condition of life, 

 physical or spiritual. Neither precept or example 

 changed or impressed them in the least degree. If any 

 advance is ever made by them towards civilization it 

 will be by taking them in training schools. After fifty 

 years of missionary labor in forcing with the whip, the 

 stocks, and the fetters, they sank back into their orig- 

 inal condition of vice, ignorance and degradation. 



For half a century or more the padres pursued a 

 svstem of oppression, under the name of Christianity, 

 that depopulated the country of its primitive inhabit- 

 ants without leaving any testimonials of benefits con- 

 ferred. The commonest needs of civilized life were 

 not supplied them to mitigate the rigors of desnotism. 

 Humanity lost nothinsf bv the close of the so-called pa- 

 tria'-chal aee on the Pacific Coast. 



The highest intelligence, or, more properly, cunning 

 displayed bv these savages, is in trving to obtain suf- 

 ficient food to supply nature's demands. When acorns 

 and other similar foods fail, they have a method of 

 stalking deer or antelope that is very successful. An 

 Indian will clothe himself in the skin, head, and horns 

 of a deer, and so well imitate the form and motion of 

 one of the.se animals as to deceive the most timid and 



