S78 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP, whole this is one of the best regulated and most cleanly missions in the 
country. Its herds of cattle amount to 10,000 in number, and of horses 
Nov. there are about 300, 
When our travellers visited the mission it was governed by padres 
Jose and Machin, two priests of the mendicant order of S4n Francisco, 
to which class belong all the priests in Upper California, They ap- 
peared to lead a comfortable life, though not over well provided with 
its luxuries. 
We will not, however, pry too narrowly into the internal arrange- 
ments of the good fathers’ dwelling ; let it suffice, that they gave our 
travellers a cordial welcome, and entertained them at their board in a 
most hospitable manner. After joining them in a dram of aquadente, 
they allowed their guests to retire to their sleeping apartment, where, 
stretched upon couches of bull-hide as tough and impenetrable as the 
cuirass of their friend the dragoon (who left them at this place), they 
soon fell asleep — thanks to excessive weariness — and slept as soundly 
as las piilgas would let them. 
Having breakfasted the following morning with the padres, and being 
provided with fresh horses, a new escort and vaqueros, the party was 
about to start, but were delayed by the punishment of an Indian 
who had stolen a blanket, for which he received two dozen lashes with 
a leathern thong upon that part of the human frame, which, we learn 
from Hudibras, is the most susceptible of insult. Some other Indians 
were observed to be heavily shackled, but the causes of their punish- 
ment were not stated. 
A beautiful avenue of trees, nearly three miles in length, leads 
from the mission to the pueblo of San Jose, the largest settlement of 
the kind in Upper California. It consists of mud houses miserably 
provided in every respect, and contains about .000 inhabitants — retired 
soldiers and their families, who under the old government were allowed 
the privilege of forming settlements of this nature, and had a quantity 
of ground allotted to them for the use of their cattle. They style 
themselves Gente deRazon, to distinguish them from the Indians, whose 
intellectual qualities are frequent subjects of animadversion amongst 
these enlightened communities. They are governed by an alcalde. 
