416 GENERAL FACTS. 
least four-sevenths of their subsistence, fish perhaps two-sevenths; on the 
treeless plains the proportion of fish was considerably larger, and various 
seeds contributed say one-seventh. There are far more acorns in the Sierra 
and the Coast Range than on the Klamath, and all the interior rivers yielded 
salmon nearly as abundantly as that river. I think three hundred thousand 
might be added to the above figure in consideration of the greater fertility 
of Central and Southern California; this would give seven hundred and 
five thousand Indians in the State. 
Let us take certain limited areas. The pioneers estimate the aboriginal 
population of Round Valley, when they first visited it, all the way from 
five thousand to twenty thousand. One thousand white people in it would 
be considered a very fair population, if indeed it would not crowd it. Mr. 
Christy estimates that there were from three hundred to five hundred In- 
dians in Coyote Valley near Ukiah; now there are eight white families 
there, and they think they have none too much elbow-room. General Bid- 
well states that in 1849 there were at least one thousand souls in the village 
of the Korusi (Colusa). A Mr. Robinson pointed out to me the site of a 
village on Van Dusen’s Fork which he thought contained one thousand 
people in 1850. Several other instances might be adduced if necessary. I 
saw enough in Northern California to convince me that there is many a 
valley in that section which once contained more Indians than it will of 
whites for the next century. The natives drew their stores from wide 
forests all around and from the waters; the whites depend chiefly on the 
valley itself. 
The very prevalence of the crime of infanticide points to an over- 
fruitfulness and an over- population. 
That they were equal to Europeans in bread-winning strength nobody 
claims, for they lived largely on vegetable food, and that of a quality in- 
ferior to bread and beans. But as athletes they were superior, and they 
were a healthy, long-lived race. In trials of skill they used to shoot arrows 
a quarter of a mile, or drive them a half-inch into a green oak. I knew a 
herald on the Upper Sacramento to run about fifty miles between ten or 
eleven o'clock and sunrise in September; another in Long Valley, near 
Clear Lake, ran about twelve miles in a little over an hour. The strength of 
