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STATISTICAL XIV. Province of Old California.

nature. They pass whole days stretched out on their bellies on the sand, when it is heated by the reverberation of the solar rays. Like several tribes of the Orinoco seen by us, they entertain a great horror for clothing. "A monkey dressed up does not appear so ridiculous to the common people in Europe," says Father Venegas, “as a man in clothes appears to the Indians of California." Notwithstanding this state of apparent stupidity, the first missionaries distinguished different religious sects. among the natives. Three divinities, who carried on a war of extermination against each other, were objects of terror among three of the tribes of California. The Pericues dreaded the power of Niparaya, and the Menquis and the Vehities the power of Wactipuran and Sumongo. I say that these hordes dreaded, not that they adored, invisible beings; for the worship of the savage is merely a fit of fear, the sentiment of a secret and religious horror.

According to the information which I obtained from the monks who now govern the two Californias, the population of Old California has diminished to such a degree within the last thirty years, that there are not more than from four to five thousand native cultivators (Indios reducidos) in the villages of the missions. The number

STATISTICAL XIV. Province of Old California.

of these missions is also reduced to sixteen. Those of Santiago and Guadalupe remain without inhabitants. The small pox, and another malady which the Europeans would fain persuade themselves that they received from the same continent to which they were the first who carried it, and which exercises such ravages in the South Sea islands, are cited as the principal causes of the depopulation of California. It is to be supposed that there are others which depend on the nature of the political institutions; and it is high time that the Mexican government should seriously think of removing the obstacles which prevent the prosperity of the inhabitants of the peninsula. The number of the savages scarcely amounts to 4000. It is observed that those who inhabit the north of California are somewhat more gentle and civilized than the natives of the southern division.

The principal villages of this province are: Loreto, presidio and principal place of all the missions of Old California, founded at the end of the 17th century by Father Kühn, the astronomer of Ingolstadt:

Santa Ana, mission and real de minas, celebrated on account of the astronomical observations of Velasquez.

STATISTICAL XIV. Province of Old California.

ANALYSIS.

San Joseph, mission in which the Abbe Chappe perished, the victim of his zeal and devotion for the sciences *.

People who have lived a long time in California have assured me, that the Noticia of Father Venegas, against which the enemies of the suppressed order, and even Cardinal Lorenzana, have raised up doubts, is very accurate (Cartas de Cortes, p. 327). There still exist in the archives of Mexico the following manuscripts, not made use of by Father Barcos in his Storia de California, printed at Rome: 1. Chronica historica de la provincia de Mechoacan con varias mapas de la California; 2. Cartas originales del Padre Juan Maria de Salva tierra; 3. Diario del Capitan Juan Mateo Mangi que accompanò a los padres apostolicos Kinò y Kappus.

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THE part of the coast of the Great Ocean. which extends from the isthmus of Old California or from the bay of Todos los Santos (south from the port of San Diego) to Cape Mendocino, bears on the Spanish maps the name of New California (Nueva California). It is a long and narrow extent of country in which for these forty years the Mexican government has been establishing missions and military posts. No village or farm is to be found north of the port of St. Francis, which is more than 78 leagues distant from Cape Mendocino. The province of New California in its present state is only 197 leagues in length, and from 9 to 10 in breadth. The city of Mexico is the same distance in a straight line from Philadelphia as from Monterey, which is the chief place of the missions of New California, and of which the latitude is the same to within a few minutes with that of Cadiz.

We have already taken notice of the journeys of several monks, who, in the beginning of the last century, in passing by land from the peninsula of

STATISTICAL } XV. Intendancy of New California.

ANALYSIS.

Old California to Sonora, went on foot round the sea of Cortez. At the time of the expedition of M. Galvez military detachments came from Loreto to the port of San Diego. The letter post still goes from this port along the north-west coast to San Francisco. This last establishment, the most northern of all the Spanish possessions of the New Continent, is almost under the same parallel with the small town of Taos in New Mexico. It is not more than 300 leagues distant from it; and though Father Escalante, in his apostolical excursions in 1777, advanced along the western bank of the river Zaguananas towards the mountains de los Guacaros, no traveller has yet come from New Mexico to the coast of New California. This fact must appear remarkable to those who know, from the history of the conquest of America, the spirit of enterprize and the wonderful courage with which the Spaniards were animated in the 16th century. Hernan Cortez landed for the first time on the coast of Mexico in the district of Chalchiuhcuecan in 1519, and in the space of four years had already constructed vessels on the coast of the South Sea at Zacatula and Tehuantepec. In 1537 Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca appeared with two of his companions

VOL. II,

* See the first chapter of this work.

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