AND HER YANKEE HUSBAND.
Red Woods, Contra Costra, Dec. 16, 1854. I have made acquaintance with a Kanaka woman, the only one I have ever seen. She is known by the name of Hannah, is eighteen years of age, was married five years ago to a Yankee sailor, and left her native island for a home in California. She is short and thick, with a complexion darker than that of our Indians, has a broad nose and wide mouth, her countenance partaking of a mixture of the Indian and the Negro. She is kind and affectionate, lively and excitable, quick and passionate, simple and guileless. Her mind is uncultivated, and she is grossly vulgar and profane in her language, and disgustingly filthy in her person and dress. She is very temperate, drinking no strong liquors, but smokes cigars. She is honest and trusty, faithful to discharge all debts she may contract, and to fulfil all her engagements. She is a simple-minded child of nature, and I am often amused with her child-like talk.
This morning she was very inquisitive, and made many inquiries about my home and family. I showed her a daguerreotype of my daughter. She examined it with much curiosity and in silence for several minutes, when she broke out in a shower of questions, ejaculations and remarks, which could not but amuse me.
"Dat you little gal? Don to see dranfader? Petty woman, brack hair. Dot a rin on her han. (Ring on her finger.) What you gal name? How old you gal? Very petty. You gal, he no come to Californy? You no want to see you gal? Petty dress." And then she asked me about my father, mother, sister, brothers, and every thing relating to them, until she got a pretty full account of my family.
Hannah is a good rider, and often figures on horseback in a very long blue calico riding-dress, a man's straw hat with a narrow brim, and tied with a string under the chin, and a woolen jacket belonging to her husband. Our circus riders might learn some useful lessons from Hannah's equestrian feats.
Mr. Joseph Tracy, or as he is more familiarly called, Kanaka Joe, is a sailor from Maine, has seen much of the world, was on board the Princeton steamship at the time of the explosion of the great gun, by which several gentlemen of John Tyler's cabinet were killed, and has spent considerable time in the Sandwich Islands, whither he intends to return after he shall have made his fortune in California. Joe is a still, quiet, peaceable fellow, though quick to resent an insult, and can fight beautifully when necessary. He has a sailor's high notions of honor and a sailor's deep passion for drink. He is fond of reading withal, has quite a taste for the yellow-covered literature, talks learnedly of books, and often philosophizes very wisely, and has no mean opinion of his own literary taste and scientific attainments. Joe is very fond of his Kanaka wife, though he flogs her occasionally in the heat of passion, repenting of it immediately after. As Joe's improvident habits are not conducive to a rapid accumulation of riches, the time of his return to his island-home may be considered somewhat uncertain.
January, 1855. Señor Moraga was one of those land owners, whose domains, over which immense droves of wild cattle roamed, extended over many a league of rich land, until the advent of the Americans, who lawlessly despoiled them of large numbers of their cattle, and who introduced many expensive habits among them, which they were but too ready to adopt; when necessity compelled them to part with large tracts of their lands to the greedy foreigners, and their estates dwindled down to insignificant ranches. Señor Moraga, though shorn of many thousand acres, had still a large and exceedingly valuable estate remaining.
I received an invitation to attend a party at his house on New Year's eve, 1855. I set out on foot in the evening, which was lighted up by a moon approaching the full, that often breaking forth from masses of dark clouds, which had been pouring down a plentiful supply of rain during the day, enabled me to follow a trail that led up the valley and over the mountain ridge, on the opposite side of which stood Moraga's residence. It was a fine evening, and I—I scarcely knew why—was in a mood to enjoy it. It may have been the breaking up of the storm and the appearance of the clouds and the sky, which resembled more nearly the moonlight views we have in New England than any thing I had beheld for many a long month; or it may have been the pleasing anticipation of the novelties I was about to witness and enjoy during the evening, though what they were I had not been informed and could hardly imagine. But whatever may have been the cause, my spirits were buoyant, and my thoughts busy and pleasant.