The little
children were running about among the huts, stark naked, and the men
were not much better; but the women had generally coarse gowns, of a
sort of tow cloth. The men are employed, most of the time, in
tending the cattle of the mission, and in working in the garden, which
is a very large one, including several acres, and filled, it is
said, with the best fruits of the climate. The language of these
people, which is spoken by all the Indians of California, is the
most brutish and inhuman language, without any exception, that I
ever heard, or that could well be conceived of. It is a complete
slabber. The words fall off of the ends of their tongues, and a
continual slabbering sound is made in the cheeks, outside of the
teeth. It cannot have been the language of Montezuma and the
independent Mexicans.
Here, among the huts, we saw the oldest man that I had ever seen;
and, indeed, I never supposed that a person could retain life and
exhibit such marks of age. He was sitting out in the sun, leaning
against the side of a hut; and his legs and arms, which were bare,
were of a dark red color, the skin withered and shrunk up like burnt
leather, and the limbs not larger round than those of a boy of five
years.
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