A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 11 | Page 5

and gentle dispositions,
having no appearance of cruelty in their countenances or behaviour, yet
seemed haughty towards their women. They lead a careless life, having
every thing in common, and seemed to desire nothing beyond the

necessaries of life. They never once offered to pilfer or steal any of our
tools or other utensils; and such was their honesty, that my men having
forgotten their axes one day on shore, while cutting wood, which was
noticed by one of the natives, he told it to the king, who sent into the
wood for the axes, and restored them with much apparent satisfaction.
Their language is guttural and harsh, and they talk a great deal, but I
could never understand a single word they spoke. Their dwellings were
very mean, being scarcely sufficient to shelter them. Their diet is, I
believe, mostly fish, which they frequently eat raw, but they sometimes
bake it in the sand. They seldom want abundance of this food, as the
men go out to sea on their bark-logs, and are very expert harponiers.
Their harpoons are made of hard wood, and with these they strike the
largest albicores, and bring them ashore on their bark-logs, which they
row with double paddles. This seemed strange to us, who had often
experienced the strength of these fish; for frequently when we had hold
of one of these with very large hooks, made fast to eight-strand twine,
we had to bring the ship to, to bring them in, and it was then as much as
eight or ten men could do; so that one would expect, when an Indian
had struck one of these fish, from his light float, it would easily run
away with the man and the bark-log; but they have some sleight in their
way of management, by which the strength and struggling of these fish
are all in vain. There are hardly any birds to be seen in this country
except a few pelicans.
When the Californians want to drink, they wade into the river, up to
their middles, where they take up the water in their hands, or stoop
down and suck it with their mouths. Their time is occupied between
hunting, fishing, eating, and sleeping; and having abundant exercise,
and rather a spare diet, their lives are ordinarily prolonged to
considerable age, many of both sexes appearing to be very old, by their
faces being much wrinkled, and their hair very grey. Their bows are
about six feet long, with strings made of deer's sinews, but their arrows
seemed too long for their bows; and considering that they have no
adequate tools, these articles must require much time in making. The
shafts of their arrows consist of a hollow cane, for two-thirds of their
length, the other third, or head, being of a heavy kind of wood, edged

with flint, or sometimes agate, and the edges notched like a saw, with a
very sharp point. They made no display of their arms to us, and we
seldom saw any in their hands, though they have need of some arms to
defend themselves from wild beasts, as I saw some men who had been
severely hurt in that way, particularly one old man, who had his thigh
almost torn in pieces by a tiger or lion, and though, healed, it was
frightfully scarred. The women commonly go into the woods with
bows and arrows in search of game, while the men are chiefly occupied
in fishing. I can say nothing respecting their government, except that it
did not seem any way strict or rigorous. When the king appeared in
public, he was usually attended by many couples, or men walking hand
in hand, two and two together. On the first morning of our arrival, he
was seen in this manner coming out of a wood, and noticing one of my
officers cutting down a tree, whom he judged to be better than ordinary,
by having silver lace on his waistcoat, be shewed both his authority and
civility at the same time, by ordering one of his attendants to take the
axe and work in his stead.
One day while we were there, a prodigious flat fish was seen basking in
the sun on the surface of the water near the shore, on which twelve
Indians swam off and surrounded him. Finding himself disturbed, the
fish dived, and they after him, but he escaped from them at this time.
He appeared again in about an hour, when sixteen or seventeen Indians
swam off and encompassed him; and, by continually tormenting him,
drove, him insensibly ashore. On grounding, the force with which he
struck the ground with his fins is not to be expressed, neither can I
describe the agility with which the Indians strove to dispatch him,