CXXXVI 
CALIFORNIA, 
Cota TEA SEO aR ON) TB cA 
value. The natives bore their nofes and under lips, and infert bones in them 
by way of ornament. Among the laft in this group is Oonolafcha, which was 
vifited by Captain Cook. This lies fo near to the coaft of America, as to clame 
a right to be confidered as an appurtenance to it. I fhall therefore quit thefe de- 
tached paths for the prefent, and, in purfuance of my plan, trace the coafts of 
the northern divifion of the great continent, from the place at which it is di- 
vided from South America. 
After traverfing obliquely the Pacific Ocean, appears California, the moft 
foutherly part of my plan on this fide of the new world. This greateft of pen- 
infulas extends from Cape Blanco, lat. 32, to Cape St. Lucas, lat. 23; and is 
bounded on the eaft by a great gulph, called the Vermillion fea, receiving at its 
bottom the vaft and violent river Cokerado. The weft fide is mountanous, fandy, 
and barren *, with feveral vulcanoes on the main land and the ifles + : the eaftern, 
varied with extenfive plains, fine vallies watered with numbers of ftreams, and 
the country abounds with trees and variety of fruits. The natives, the moft in- 
nocent of people, are in a ftate of paradifaical nature, or at left were fo before 
the arrival of the Exrcpean colonifts among them. ‘The men went nearly naked, 
without the confcioufnefs of being fo. The head is the only part they pay any 
attention to; and that is furrounded with a chaplet of net-work, ornamented 
with feathers, fruits, or mother of pearl. The women have a neat matted apron 
falling to their knees: they fling over their fhoulders the fkin of fome beaft, or 
of fome large bird, and wear a head-drefs like the other fex. The weapons 
of the country are bows, arrows, javelins, and bearded darts, calculated either 
for war or the chace. In the art of navigation, they have not got beyond the 
bark-log, made of a few bodies of trees bound parallel together; and in thefe 
they dare the turbulent element. They have no houfes. During fummer they 
fhelter themfelves from the fun under the fhade of trees; and during nights fleep 
under a roof of branches fpread over them. In winter they burrow under 
ground, and lodge as fimply as the beafts themfelves: fuch however was 
their condition in 1697; I have not been able to learn the effect of European 
refinement on their manners. Numbers of fettlements have, fince that time, 
been formed there, under the aufpices of the Jefuits. IThe Order was of late years 
fupported by the Marquis de Valero, a patriotic and munificent nobleman ¢, who 
favored their attempts, in order to extend the power and wealth of the Spani/h 
dominions ; 
* Shelvoke, in Harris's Coll. i. 233. + Hackluyt, iii. 401.—Hift. California, i. 140. 
} This is the nobleman whom the writer of Lord Ax/on’s Voyage ftigmatifes with the epithet of 
munificent bigot. It was not by a reverend author, as is generally fuppofed, but by a perfon whofe 
principles were unhappily in the extreme of another tintture.—Having from my youth been honored 
with 
