112 
SCENES IN THE PACIFIC. 
apart, are sunk six feet in depth, and to a level with the sur¬ 
face. Between these the dead are buried in such manner that 
their feet touch one wall and their heads the other. These 
grounds have been long since filled. In order, however, that 
no Christian Indian may be buried in a less holy place, the 
bones, after the flesh has decayed, are exhumed and deposited 
in a little building on one corner of the premises. I entered 
this. Three or four cart-loads of skulls, ribs, spines, leg-bones, 
arm-bones &c., lay in one corner. Beside them stood two 
hand-hearses with a small cross attached to each. About the 
walls hung the mould of death ! 
On the first of May the American made application for 
permission to see the prisoners, and was refused. He had 
heard that they were in want of food, and proposed to supply 
them; but was forbidden by Jose Castro, the officer in charge. 
The prison-ship had arrived at Santa Barbara on the twenty- 
fifth of April, and landed forty-one of the prisoners. Four 
others were retained on board to work. These forty-one men, 
during the whole passage from Monterey, had been chained to 
long bars of iron passing transversely across the hold of the 
ship. They were not permitted to go on deck, nor even to 
stand on their feet. A bucket was occasionally passed about 
for particular purposes, but so seldom as to be of little use. 
They were furnished with a mere morsel of food, and that of 
the worst quality. Of water, they had scarcely enough to 
prevent death from thirst; and so small and close was the 
place in which they were chained that it was not uncommon 
for the more debilitated to faint and lie some time in a lifeless 
state. When they landed, many of them had become so 
weak that they could not get out of the boat without aid. 
Their companions in chains assisted them, although threaten¬ 
ed with instant death if they did so. After being set ashore, 
they were marched in the midst of drawn swords and fixed 
bayonets, dragging their chains around bleeding limbs, one 
mile and three-quarters, to the mission of Santa Barbara! 
