113 
TRAVELS I N THE CALIFORNIAS. 
Here they were put into a single room of the mission prisons, 
without floor or means of ventilation. The bottom of the 
cell was soft mud ! In this damp dungeon, without food or 
water, these poor fellows remained two days and nights l 
They had not even straw on which to sleep! 
At the end of this time it coming to the ears of the Friar in 
charge of the mission, that one of them was dying of hunger 
and thirst, he repaired to the prison and inquired of Pinto, the 
corporal of the guard, if such were the fact S The miniature 
monster answered, that he did not know. The Friar replied, 
“ are you an officer and a Catholic, and do not know the state 
of your prisoners ! You, sir, are an officer of to-day, and 
should not be one to-morrow.” The good man entered 
the cell; found one of the Englishmen speechless; admin¬ 
istered baptism, and removed him to the house of a kind 
family, where I found him on my arrival; still speechless and 
incapable of motion. The Friar extended his kindness to the 
other prisoners. He ordered Castro to furnish them food 
and water. But the villain, evading so far as he was able, 
gave them barely enough of each to tantalize them, until the 
arrival of the American in the Don Quixote; when that 
fleet, laying off the coast, commanded by such a man, charm¬ 
ed his benevolence and mercy into activity. From the first 
of May, therefore, they had food and water, and were per¬ 
mitted to take the air and bathe daily. 
On the fourth, the American was permitted to see the prison¬ 
ers. They had been scrubbing themselves at the great tank; 
and were allowed, at his suggestion, to take their dinner in the 
open air. They had evidently suffered exceedingly since 
they left Monterey; for their countenances had lost the 
little color which the dungeons of that place had left them. 
Their hands looked skeleton-wise; their eyes were deeply 
sunken in their sockets; they tottered when they walked! 
Poor men! For no other fault than their Anglo-Saxon 
blood, they fared like felons ! They had a long voyage, and 
slavery in the mines of Mexico before them, and were sad 
