After our tedious row, (for, owing to the zigzag course we had been compelled to steer, we had passed over a distance of at least forty miles,) the camping out, in a beautiful night, was quite delightful. Although it was now the latter end of September, the air was as mild as with us during the warmest summer nights. Round our little encampment we heard an incessant barking, as of young dogs, proceeding from a species of wolf, which abounds throughout California; it is not larger than the fox; but is so daring and dexterous, that it makes no scruple of entering human habitations in the night, and rarely fails to appropriate whatever happens to suit it. This we ourselves experienced; for our provision of meat had not been sufficiently secured, and we found nothing in the morning but a gnawed and empty bag.
The rising sun announced the approach of a fine day, and gave us a view of the extensive plains which formed the surrounding country. The missionaries cultivated wheat upon them, which had been already harvested, and large flocks of cattle, horses, and sheep, were seen pasturing among the stubble. The mission of Santa Clara possesses fourteen thousand head of cattle, one thousand horses, and ten thousand sheep. The greater part of these animals being left to roam undisturbed about the woods, they multiply with amazing rapidity.
I now ordered the horses to be saddled, and we set off for the mission, the buildings and woods of which bounded the view over these prodigious corn-fields. Our way lay through the stubble, amongst flocks of wild geese, ducks, and snipes, so tame that we might have killed great numbers with our sticks. These are all birds of passage, spending the winter here, and the summer farther north. We fired a few shots among the geese, and brought down about a dozen: they differ but little in size from our domestic goose, and some of them are quite white. A ride of an hour and a half brought us to Santa Clara, where the monks received us in the most friendly manner, and exerted themselves most hospitably, to make our visit agreeable.
The mission, which was founded in the year 1777, is situated beside a stream of the most pure and delicious water, in a large and extremely fertile plain. The buildings of Santa Clara, overshadowed by thick groves of oaks, and surrounded by gardens which, though carelessly cultivated, produce an abundance of vegetables, the finest grapes, and fruits of all kinds, are in the same style as at all the other missions. They consist of a large stone church, a spacious dwelling-house for the monks, a large magazine for the preservation of corn, and the Rancherios, or barracks, for the Indians, of which mention has already been made. These are divided into long rows of houses, or rather stalls, where each family is allowed a space scarcely large enough to enable them to lie down to repose. We were struck by the appearance of a large quadrangular building, which having no windows on the outside, and only one carefully secured door, resembled a prison for state-criminals. It proved to be the residence appropriated by the monks, the severe guardians of chastity, to the young unmarried Indian women, whom they keep under their particular superintendence, making their time useful to the community by spinning, weaving, and similar occupations. These dungeons are opened two or three times a-day, but only to allow the prisoners to pass to and from the church. I have occasionally seen the poor girls rushing out eagerly to breathe the fresh air, and driven immediately into the church like a flock of sheep, by an old ragged Spaniard armed with a stick. After mass, they are in the same manner hurried back to their prisons. Yet, notwithstanding all the care of the ghostly fathers, the feet of some of these uninviting fair ones were cumbered with bars of iron, the penal consequence, as I was informed, of detected transgression. Only on their marriage are these cloistered virgins allowed to issue from their confinement and associate with their own people in the barracks.
Three times a-day a bell summons the Indians to their meals, which are prepared in large kettles, and served out in portions to each family. They are seldom allowed meat; their ordinary, and not very wholesome food, consisting of wheaten flour, maize, peas and beans, mixed together, and boiled to a thick soup.
The mission of Santa Clara contains fifteen hundred male Indians, of whom about one-half are married. All these men are governed by three monks, and guarded by four soldiers and a subaltern officer. Since this force is found sufficient, it follows either that the Indians of the mission are happier than their free countrymen, or that, no way superior to the domestic animals, they are chained by their instincts to the place where their food is provided. The first supposition can hardly be well founded. Hard labour every day, Sundays only excepted, when labour is superseded by prayer; corporal chastisement, imprisonment, and fetters on the slightest demonstration of disobedience; unwholesome nourishment, miserable lodging, deprivation of all property, and of all the enjoyments of life:—these are not boons which diffuse content. Many indeed of these unfortunate victims prove, by their attempts to escape, that their submission is involuntary; but the soldiers, as I have before observed, generally hunt them from their place of refuge, and bring them back to undergo the severe punishment their transgression has incurred. To the most stupid apathy, then, must the patience of these Indians be ascribed; and in this, their distinguishing characteristic, they exceed every race of men I have ever known, not excepting the degraded natives of Terra del Fuego, or Van Diemen's Land.
The Christian religion, or what the monks are pleased to call by that name, has given no beneficial spur to their minds. How indeed could it act upon their confined understandings, when their teachers were almost wholly deficient in the necessary means of communicating knowledge,—an acquaintance with their language? I have since had opportunities of observing the free Indians, who appear less stupid, and in many respects more civilized, than the proselytes of the gente rationale, as the Spaniards here call themselves; and I am convinced that the system of instruction and discipline adopted by the monks, has certainly tended to degrade even these step-children of Nature. If to raise them to the rank of intellectual beings had been really the object in view, rather than making them the mock professors of a religion they are incapable of understanding, they should have been taught the arts of agriculture and architecture, and the method of breeding cattle; they should have been made proprietors of the land they cultivated, and should have freely enjoyed its produce. Had this been done, los barbaros might soon have stood on a level with the gente rationale.
There are in California many different races of Indians, whose languages vary so much from each other, as sometimes to have scarcely any resemblance; in the single mission of Santa Clara more than twenty languages are spoken. These races are all alike ugly, stupid, dirty, and disgusting: they are of a middle size, weak, and of a blackish colour; they have flat faces, thick lips, broad negro-noses, scarcely any foreheads, and black, coarse, straight hair. The powers of their mind lie yet profoundly dormant; and La Pérouse does not perhaps exaggerate when he affirms, that if any one among them can be made to comprehend that twice two make four, he may pass, in comparison with his countrymen, for a Descartes or a Newton. To most of them, this important arithmetical proposition would certainly be perfectly incomprehensible.
In their wild state, all these Indians lead a wandering life. It is only recently that they have begun to build huts of underwood, which they burn whenever they remove from the spot. The chase is their sole occupation and means of subsistence. Hence their skill in shooting with arrows has cost many Spanish lives. They lie in wait at night, in the forests and mountains, watching for game.