He Was Decently Buried, And The Place Was Restored
Quietly To The Proper Authorities.
A general, with titles enough
for an hidalgo, was at San Gabriel, and issued a proclamation
as long as
The fore-top-bowline, threatening destruction to
the rebels, but never stirred from his fort; for forty Kentucky
hunters, with their rifles, were a match for a whole regiment of
hungry, drawling, lazy half-breeds. This affair happened while
we were at San Pedro, (the port of the Pueblo,) and we had all
the particulars directly from those who were on the spot. A few
months afterwards, another man, whom we had often seen in San Diego,
murdered a man and his wife on the high road between the Pueblo and
San Louis Rey, and the foreigners not feeling themselves called upon
to act in this case, the parties being all natives, nothing was done
about it; and I frequently afterwards saw the murderer in San Diego,
where he was living with his wife and family.
When a crime has been committed by Indians, justice, or rather
vengeance, is not so tardy. One Sunday afternoon, while I was
at San Diego, an Indian was sitting on his horse, when another,
with whom he had had some difficulty, came up to him, drew a long knife,
and plunged it directly into the horse's heart. The Indian sprang
from his falling horse, drew out the knife, and plunged it into
the other Indian's breast, over his shoulder, and laid him dead.
The poor fellow was seized at once, clapped into the calabozo,
and kept there until an answer could be received from Monterey.
A few weeks afterwards, I saw the poor wretch, sitting on the
bare ground, in front of the calabozo, with his feet chained to
a stake, and handcuffs about his wrists. I knew there was very
little hope for him. Although the deed was done in hot blood,
the horse on which he was sitting being his own, and a great
favorite, yet he was an Indian, and that was enough. In about a
week after I saw him, I heard that he had been shot. These few
instances will serve to give one a notion of the distribution of
justice in California.
In their domestic relations, these people are no better than in their
public. The men are thriftless, proud, and extravagant, and very
much given to gaming; and the women have but little education,
and a good deal of beauty, and their morality, of course, is none of
the best; yet the instances of infidelity are much less frequent than
one would at first suppose. In fact, one vice is set over against
another; and thus, something like a balance is obtained. The women
have but little virtue, but then the jealousy of their husbands is
extreme, and their revenge deadly and almost certain. A few inches
of cold steel has been the punishment of many an unwary man, who has
been guilty, perhaps, of nothing more than indiscretion of manner.
The difficulties of the attempt are numerous, and the consequences
of discovery fatal. With the unmarried women, too, great watchfulness
is used. The main object of the parents is to marry their daughters
well, and to this, the slightest slip would be fatal. The sharp eyes
of a dueña, and the cold steel of a father or brother, are a protection
which the characters of most of them - men and women - render by no means
useless; for the very men who would lay down their lives to avenge the
dishonor of their own family, would risk the same lives to complete
the dishonor of another.
Of the poor Indians, very little care is taken. The priests,
indeed, at the missions, are said to keep them very strictly,
and some rules are usually made by the alcaldes to punish their
misconduct; but it all amounts to but little. Indeed, to show the
entire want of any sense of morality or domestic duty among them,
I have frequently known an Indian to bring his wife, to whom he
was lawfully married in the church, down to the beach, and carry
her back again, dividing with her the money which she had got
from the sailors. If any of the girls were discovered by the
alcalde to be open evil-livers, they were whipped, and kept at
work sweeping the square of the presidio, and carrying mud and
bricks for the buildings; yet a few reáls would generally buy
them off. Intemperance, too, is a common vice among the Indians.
The Spaniards, on the contrary, are very abstemious, and I do not
remember ever having seen a Spaniard intoxicated.
Such are the people who inhabit a country embracing four or five
hundred miles of sea-coast, with several good harbors; with fine
forests in the north; the waters filled with fish, and the plains
covered with thousands of herds of cattle; blessed with a climate,
than which there can be no better in the world; free from all
manner of diseases, whether epidemic or endemic; and with a soil
in which corn yields from seventy to eighty fold. In the hands
of an enterprising people, what a country this might be! we are
ready to say. Yet how long would a people remain so, in such a
country? The Americans (as those from the United States are
called) and Englishmen, who are fast filling up the principal
towns, and getting the trade into their hands, are indeed more
industrious and effective than the Spaniards; yet their children
are brought up Spaniards, in every respect, and if the "California
fever" (laziness) spares the first generation, it always attacks
the second.
CHAPTER XXII
LIFE ON SHORE - THE ALERT
Saturday, July 18th. This day, sailed the Mexican hermaphrodite brig,
Fazio, for San Blas and Mazatlan. This was the brig which was driven
ashore at San Pedro in a south-easter, and had been lying at San Diego
to repair and take in her cargo.
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