The Little Children Were
Running About Among The Huts, Stark Naked, And The Men Were Not
Much Better; But The Women Had Generally Coarse Gowns, Of A Sort Of
Tow Cloth.
The men are employed, most of the time, in tending the
cattle of the mission, and in working in the garden, which is a very
large one, including several acres, and filled, it is said, with the
best fruits of the climate.
The language of these people, which is
spoken by all the Indians of California, is the most brutish and
inhuman language, without any exception, that I ever heard, or that
could well be conceived of. It is a complete slabber. The words
fall off of the ends of their tongues, and a continual slabbering sound
is made in the cheeks, outside of the teeth. It cannot have been
the language of Montezuma and the independent Mexicans.
Here, among the huts, we saw the oldest man that I had ever seen;
and, indeed, I never supposed that a person could retain life and
exhibit such marks of age. He was sitting out in the sun, leaning
against the side of a hut; and his legs and arms, which were bare,
were of a dark red color, the skin withered and shrunk up like
burnt leather, and the limbs not larger round than those of a boy
of five years. He had a few grey hairs, which were tied together
at the back of his head; and he was so feeble that, when we came
up to him, he raised his hands slowly to his face, and taking hold
of his lids with his fingers, lifted them up to look at us;
and being satisfied, let them drop again.
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