The women are the best looking, but in general, are not handsome; they are mostly taller than the men, who have low foreheads, projecting cheekbones and hollow eyes, with a large mouth, thick lips, and strong teeth, with bushy, eyebrows; the women are particularly careful to eradicate the hair from their bodies, and pierce their ears for ear-rings; the age of puberty in the women is as early as eleven and twelve, in the boys about thirteen; they are rapid and violent in the expressions of the passions of anger and joy; like other savage nations, they are divided into tribes, which move together from one place to another as fancy or necessity dictate. Their chiefs are chosen from the tallest, the strongest and the most warlike amongst them, and are distinguished by their head-dress. Such as are not under the immediate influence of the missionaries, practise polygamy; but the men hold their women in servitude.
Sore throats, colds, pleurisies and disorders, attendant on a variable climate, are their complaints in the severe seasons; they make use of vegetable decoctions for the cure of these disorders; fevers prevail in summer. The women suffer very little in child-birth, and the attendant in those cases, plunges the new born infant into cold water, the mother bathing soon after, and is then covered up warm near a fire: she performs these ablutions and heatings successively for some time, and the infants are bandaged up in furs and pieces of bark, nearly in the same manner as in Canada. Their religion, previous to the priests coming amongst them, was very similar to that of most savage people, having a faint, idea of the Creator. A chain of mountains runs through the peninsula, the highest of which, called Cerro de la Giganta, is 4920 feet above the level of the sea.
The peninsula, or Old California, is, as we before observed, more barren than the northern province; it is mostly a rocky soil, and seems as if some concussion of nature had disjoined it from Sonora; the climate is hot in the summer, but it is moderated by the sea breezes. Few trees of any consequence are found except on the south; there are some small volcanoes in it, with a ridge of mountains; vines and the Indian fig grow wild; the coast of the gulf is low and marshy, and the pearl fishery is very valuable; the gulf produces all sorts of shell-fish, turtles, oysters, lobsters, &c. Peacocks, bustards, geese, ducks, cranes, vultures, and sea-fowls, are plenty on the coasts; horses, asses, sheep, and goats, have been introduced and thrive very well. In New California the climate is nearly the same as in New Mexico, the western side being superior to the other parts, on account of the neighbourhood of the Pacific; the soil of this province is very prolific. The harvests of maize, barley, wheat, pease, and beans, are comparable to those of Mexico and Chili, corn produces in a seventy-fold proportion, and the soil is favourable for nearly all sorts of fruit trees. The climate is compared by late travellers, to that of the south of France; the forests, that great feature of American scenery, are extensive, and contain cypresses, pine-apple-firs, evergreen oaks, and the western planes and rose trees; on which a singular kind of dew falling in the morning, and covering the leaves, candies, and has the appearance of manna, being as sweet as white sugar. Immense bodies, or plains of salt, are found in the interior, and there are some gold mines.
The animals of the two provinces resemble each other, chiefly consisting of wolves, bears, wild sheep, bisons, buffaloes, rabbits, foxes, wild goats, and an animal peculiar to the country, called taye, as large as a young ox, and resembles the ox in its body, having a head like a deer, with horns as a ram. The great article of Californian commerce consists in the furs of the northern and pearls of the southern province, the pearls equalling in size and beauty those of Ormuz or Ceylon. The languages of the natives are too numerous for description, each tribe having a peculiar one of its own.
The mission of St. Domingo is the most northerly of the New Californian settlements, and borders upon New Albion. This and the other northern missions of California were hastily settled, on account of the Russians having advanced their colonies considerably to the southward, on the north-west coast of America.
The other missions or settlements, which are twenty-five in number, are divided into four districts, the whole under the directions of the governor of Monterey, the captain-general of the province, and of the father president of the Franciscan order of missionaries. In each of these divisions, is a presidio or fort under the command of a lieutenant, with an ensign, serjeant, &c. The most northern fort is St. Francisco, which has under it, the missions of St. Francisco and Santa Clara; the town of St. Josef, and a settlement in the southern part of the bay, or Port Juan Francisco, or Bodega.
The next division is that of Monterey, the capital of the province, under which is the mission of Santa Cruz, at Point Aña Nueva, established in 1789, and some others; southerly, and easterly from this, are the missions of St. Carlos, St. Antonio, St. Louis, Santa Rosa, and La Purissima.
The ensuing division is that of Santa Barbara, established in 1786, which governs that of Buena Ventura, founded in 1784; south of which is the town of Los Angelos, founded in 1781; this last is under the government of the fort of St. Diego, which is the southernmost of the new settlements.
The climate of the country from Port St. Francisco, in the thirty-eighth degree of north latitude, to the thirtieth, is subject to great drought; the season of the rains is from December to March, after which the summer and autumn is dry; however the dews are heavy, and in some measure supply this want. The air is on the whole healthy, the soil sandy, very capable of improvement, and generally fertile, except in the upper and rocky country; in these, the soil is of course naturally very barren. The Spanish settlers have large flocks of sheep, and much poultry near Santa Barbara. Buena Ventura is abundant in fruit, viz. apples, oranges, peaches, pomegranates, pears, plums, figs, grapes, the plantain, cocoa-nut, banana, sugar-cane and indigo, with the kitchen-garden produce. The towns are in general no larger or better than villages; they contain from 500 to 1000 Spaniards and creoles; some late accounts say, that 20,000 natives have embraced the Catholic religion, but half that number may be judged as the fair proportion in both Californias. Their principal and best fur is the sea-otters, which abound on the northern coast. Many of the natives cultivate corn under the direction of the missionaries, but they refuse to become stationary. The trade in the above-mentioned skins has been monopolized by the Spanish government, and these settlements furnish a yearly supply of about 10,000.