The usual attendant of the American enterprise, the printing press, has found its way to California, to contribute to the information and convenience of the people. Several papers are in extensive circulation in the cities and towns, and projects for others have been formed. The principal are the Alta Californian, the Pacific News, the Courier, and the Placer Times. The three first are published in San Francisco, and the last at Sacramento.
The want of facilities for transportation must be severely felt in the interior settlements of California. Steam vessels of the swiftest and most commodious character are the means of easy communication and transportation between San Francisco and the towns on Suisan Bay and the Sacramento, as far as Sacramento City. Communication by the same means will doubtless, soon be established between the different ports on the coast. But railroads and canals are requisites for increasing the social communication and drawing the people of all parts of the State more closely together. These, however, will not be long in demand, after the State has been admitted into the Union. The companies for such purposes will feel secure in their charter, and receive assistance from the government. There is nothing more efficacious in binding a people together and maintaining peace and harmony of action, than the mechanical facility of communication. The Atlantic States of the Union afford plentiful illustration and evidence of this assertion. Mark the differences of habit and sentiment in those States, where the means of intercourse between the inhabitants are comparatively few and far between. The interests of the different sections of a large State are of course, dissimilar, and produce the widest separation of feeling and opinion, which cannot be harmonized without the facilities of intercourse afforded by railroads and canals. In no State are there greater means of communication between the people of the different sections, than in Massachusetts; and in no State is there a more harmonious action in the Legislative department of the government. Let the railroads and canals be so constructed in California as soon as possible, and the effect will be the same.
We have elsewhere mentioned and characterized the different harbors of California. There has been one other surveyed and pronounced excellent, and the beginning of a town made upon its shores. This is called Humboldt, after the distinguished traveller. It is about one hundred and seventy-five miles north of San Francisco. The river formerly called Pigeon, but now Trinity, empties into it. The harbor is sheltered from the south-west winds, but is exposed to the north-west. The north-west winds prevail from November till March, and are severe; but the south-west winds during the remainder of the year, are violent, and the harbor that is sheltered from them is considered a good one.
The Indians who inhabit a large portion of California, have been, and will be, the subject of considerable trouble to the white residents. It is a matter of the first importance for their safety, and that of the Indians themselves, that agents should be sent among them, with power to negotiate and settle all claims made by them and disputes arising between them and the whites, else, a destructive war will be the consequence. They should be induced to relinquish their claims to the soil of California as far as the Sierra Nevada, and receive due compensation therefor. But for the want of properly constituted agents from the government, they have been either driven from their old haunts by the mountaineers and other settlers, or remain amongst the whites to be a constant source of trouble. The Shoshonees, or Snakes, are the most numerous tribe to be found within the limits of the State, but there are others which are more warlike and untameable. They have all suffered considerably from the aggressions of the white emigrants, and their attacks upon individuals and parties are but the promptings of revenge, which should be taken into consideration. Lately, a war of extermination against the whole number of certain tribes was commenced on account of the doings of one or two of them. Few of them are provided with better weapons than bows and arrows, and, of course, they can make but a poor resistance to the rifles of the white men. In illustration of the treatment of the Indians, we quote an account of the doings of a war party against them, described in the work of a California tourist:—
"A few days before our arrival in the mines, five men from Oregon, named Robinson, Thompson, English, Johnson, and Wood, were murdered by Indians while engaged in gold digging. Having but one rifle, they imprudently left it in their tent. This the Indians some thirty or forty in number, first secured, and then commenced their attack with bows and arrows. The Oregonians defended themselves some time, repeatedly driving the Indians with no other weapons than the stones they found on the bar where they were at work, but upon reaching the edge of the bar, they were each time obliged again to retreat. At length three of them, stuck full of arrows, were exhausted with loss of blood and overcome; while the other two attempted to escape by crossing the fork, one succeeding in reaching the other side, but both finally meeting the fate of the others. One of the warriors of the tribe who participated in these murders was afterwards taken prisoner, and furnishing the above narration, his life was spared on condition that he should guide the whites to their rancheria.
"Accordingly, on the 16th of April, a war party was made up of about twenty young mountaineers, mostly Oregon men, and including also the young Greenwoods. Well mounted, and equipped with the enormous gingling California spurs, they rode up to Old Greenwood's for a review from the old man preparatory to starting. Each man carried besides his inseparable rifle, a long Spanish knife usually mounted with silver, and stuck in the folds of his deerskin leggings; and many were also provided with a brace of pistols or bowie knife, worn in the red Mexican sash around the waist. Old Greenwood shouted 'Mind the scalps and squaws for me, and be sure you bring 'em all in, boys,' and away they went, at a thundering lope, eager for revenge."
The day afterwards, the party returned. They were preceded by a party of Peruvians and Chilians, with a number of their peones, or slaves.
"Following closely this motley group, came on foot a body of about sixty California Indians. Warriors and boys, squaws with papooses tied on boards and slung at the back, all were prisoners. Clustered together like sheep driven to the slaughter, they hastened through the gorge with uncertain steps, the perspiration rolling off their faces now pale with fright. Many of them were quite naked, and the men and boys especially, looked more like ourang-outangs than human beings.
"In flank and rear rode the war party, which had left the Culloma Valley two days previous. Every man's rifle lay across the pommel of his saddle, and dangling at both sides hung several reeking scalps. Among them was a dashing young mountaineer named John Ross, who had two scalps for his share, and sticking in his sash was the red-sheathed bowie knife, which the writer had sold him a few days previous for an ounce of gold dust. Used previously to sever the rinds of pork, or shovel in rice and frijoles, it had now been 'wool gathering' or collecting wigs for old Greenwood's fancy stores.
"'Well done, boys,' shouted Grover, 'you have given it to them this time; now, what's the news?' In reply to this inquiry, we learned that the captured Indian had led them the night before according to promise, to their rancheria, on Weber's Creek, where some of them showing fight and others attempting escape, they were fired upon and some twenty to thirty were killed. Their chief fought until shot the third time, rising each time to his knees and discharging his arrows, Ross finally killing, cutting off his head and scalping him. Their rancheria was then searched and burned; the Indians delivering up the papers of the Oregon men, obtained at the time of their murder, and confessing that they had afterwards burned their bodies to ashes on the mountains.