MONTEREY Bay, in North California, was visited in 1786 by La Perouse, who places it in 36° 38' 43" N. Lat. and 124° 45' W. Long. from Paris. It is formed by New-year Point to the north, and by that of Cypress to the south; has an opening of eight leagues in this direction, and nearly six feet deep to the eastward, where the land is sandy and low. The sea breaks there as far as the foot of the sandy downs with which the coast is surrounded, with a roaring which may be heard more than a league off. The lands north and south of this bay are high, and covered with trees. Those ships which are desirous of touching there ought to follow the south coast, and after having doubled the Point of Pines, which stretches to the northward, they get sight of the presidencies, and may come to an anchor in ten fathoms within it, and a little within the land of this point, which shelters from the winds from the offing. The Spanish ships, which propose to make a long stay at Monterey, are accustomed to bring up within one or two cable's lengths of the land, in five fathoms, and make fast to an anchor, which they bury in the sand of the beach; they have then nothing to fear from the southerly winds, which are sometimes very strong; but, as they blow from the coast, do not expose them to any danger. The two French frigates, which our author commanded, found bottom over the whole bay, and anchored four leagues from the land, in 60 fathoms, soft muddy ground; but the sea is very heavy, and it is only an anchorage fit for a few hours, in waiting for days, or the clearing up of the fog. At full and change of the moon it is high water at half past one o'clock: the tide rises seven feet; and as this bay is very open, the current in it is nearly imperceptible. It abounds with whales; a genus of fishes, of which our scientific voyagers knew so little, that they were surprised at their spouting water!

The coasts of Monterey Bay are almost continually enveloped in fog, which cause great difficulty in the approach to them. But, for this circumstance, there would be few more easy to land upon; there is not any rock concealed under water that extends a cable's length from the shore; and if the fog be too thick, there is the resource of coming to an anchor, and there waiting for a clear, which will enable you to get a good sight of the Spanish settlement, situated in the angle formed by the south and east coast. The sea was covered with pelicans. These birds, it seems, never go farther than five or six leagues from the land; and navigators, who shall hereafter meet with them during a fog, may rely assured that they are within that distance of it.

A lieutenant-colonel, whose residence is at Monterey, is governor of the Californias; the extent of his government is more than 800 leagues in circumference, but his real subjects consist only of 282 cavalry, whose duty it is to garrison five small forts, and to furnish detachments of four or five men to each of the 25 millions, or parishes, established in old and new California. So small are the means which are adequate to the restraining about 50,000 wandering Indians in this vast part of America, among whom, nearly 12,000 have embraced Christianity. These Indians are, in general, small and weak (a), and discover none of that love of liberty and independence which characterizes the northern nations, of whose arts and industry they are also destitute. Their colour very nearly approaches that of the negroes whose hair is not woolly; the hair of these people is strong, and of great length; they cut it four or five inches from the roots. Several among them have a beard; others, according to the missionary fathers, have never had any; and this is a question which is even undecided.

(a) The chief surgeon of the expedition says they are strong, but stupid. The governor, who had travelled a great way into the interior of these lands, and who had passed 15 years of his life among the savages, assured our author, that those who had no beards had plucked them up with bivalve shells, that served them as pincers; the president of the missions, who had resided an equal length of time in California, maintained the contrary;—it was difficult, therefore, for travellers to decide between them." The difficulty, surely, was not great. By their own account, the governor had travelled much farther into the country than the missionary; and his report being confirmed by the evidence of their own senses, was intitled to unlimited credit.

These Indians are extremely skilful in drawing the bow; they killed, in the presence of the French, the smallest birds; it is true, they display an inexplicable patience in approaching them; they conceal themselves, and, as it were, glide along near to the game, seldom shooting till within 15 paces. Their industry in hunting the larger animals is still more admirable. Peroufe saw an Indian, with a flag's head fixed upon his own, walk on all-fours, as if he were browsing the grass; and he played this pantomime to such perfection, that all the French hunters would have fired at him at 30 paces, had they not been prevented. In this manner they approach herds of flags within a very small distance, and kill them with a flight of arrows.

Before the Spanish settlements, the Indians of California cultivated nothing but maize, and almost entirely lived by fishing and hunting. There is not any country in the world which more abounds in fish and game of every description: hares, rabbits, and flags are very common there; seals and otters are also found there in prodigious numbers; but to the northward, and during the winter, they kill a very great number of bears, foxes, wolves, and wild cats. The thickets and plains abound with small grey tufted partridges, which, like those in Europe, live in society, but in large companies of three or four hundred; they are fat, and extremely well flavoured. The trees serve as habitations to the most delightful birds; and the ornithologists of the voyage studied a great variety of sparrows, titmice, speckled wood-peckers, and tropical birds. Among the birds of prey are found the white-headed eagle, the great and small falcon, the goshawk, the sparrow hawk, the black vulture, the large owl, and the raven. On the ponds and sea-shore are seen the wild duck, the grey and white pelican with yellow tufts, different species of gulls, cormorants, curlews, ring-plovers, small sea water hens, and herons; together with the bee-eater, which, according to most ornithologists, is peculiar to the old continent.

The country about Monterey Bay is inexpressibly fertile. The crops of maize, barley, corn, and peas, cannot be equalled but by those of Chili; our European cultivators can have no conception of a similar fertility; the medium produce of corn is from seventy to eighty for one; the extremes sixty and a hundred. Fruit trees are still very rare there, but the climate is extremely suitable to them; it differs a little from that of the southern French provinces. The forest trees are, the stone-pine, cypress, evergreen oak, and occidental plane tree. There is no underwood; and a verdant carpet, over which it is very agreeable to walk, covers the ground. There are also vast savannahs, abounding with Mongearts, all sorts of game.

Peroufe writes with great respect of the wise and pious conduct of the Spanish missionaries at Monterey, who so faithfully fulfil the purpose of their institution. Totally unlike the monks at Conception in Chili (see that article in this Suppl.), they have left the lazy life of a cloister, to give themselves up to cares, fancies, and solicitudes of every kind. They invited the officers of the frigates to dine with them at their monastery, contiguous to which stands the Indian village, consisting of about 50 cabins, which serve as dwelling-places to 740 persons of both sexes, comprising their children, which compose the mission of Saint Charles, or of Monterey. These cabins are the most miserable that are to be met with among any people; they are round, six feet in diameter, by four in height; some flake, of the size of an arm, fixed in the earth, and which approach each other in an arch at the top, compose the timber work of it; eight or ten bundles of straw, very ill arranged over these flakes, defend the inhabitants, well or ill, from the rain and wind; and more than half of this cabin remains open when the weather is fine; their only precaution is to have each of them two or three bundles of straw at hand by way of reserve.

All the exhortations of the missionaries have never been able to procure a change of this general architecture of the two Californias. The Indians say, that they like plenty of air; that it is convenient to set fire to their houses when they are devoured in them by too great a quantity of fleas; and that they can build another in less than two hours. The independent Indians, who as hunters do frequently change their places of abode, have a stronger motive.

The monks gave the most complete information respecting the government of this species of religious community; for no other name can be given to the legislation they have established. They are superiors both in spiritual and temporal affairs; the products of the land are entirely entrusted to their administration. There are seven hours allotted to labour in the day, two hours to prayers, and four or five on Sundays and festivals, which are altogether dedicated to rest and divine worship. Corporal punishments are inflicted on the Indians of both sexes who neglect pious exercises; and several fines, the punishment of which in Europe is reserved only to Divine Justice, are punished with chains or the stocks.

The Indians, as well as the missionaries, rise with the sun, and go to prayers and mass, which last an hour; and during this time there is cooked in the middle of the square, in three large kettles, barley meal, the grain of which has been roasted previous to being ground; this species of boiled food, which the Indians call atole, and of which they are very fond, is seasoned neither with salt nor butter, and to us would prove a very infipid meal. Every cabin tends to take the portion for all its inhabitants in a vessel made of bark; there is not the least confusion or disorder; and when the copper are empty, they distribute that which sticks to the bottom to the children who have best retained their lessons of catechism. This meal continues three quarters of an hour, after which they all return to their labours; some go to plough the earth with oxen, others to dig the garden; in a word, every one is employed in different M m rent Mongeants rent domestic occupations, and always under the superintendence of one or two of the religious.

The women are charged with little else but the care of their housewifery, their children, and roasting and grinding the several grains; this last operation is very long and laborious, because they have no other means of doing it but by crushing the grain in pieces with a cylinder upon a stone. M. de Langle, being a witness of this operation, made the missionaries a present of his mill; and a greater service could not have been rendered them, as by these means four women would in a day perform the work of a hundred, and time enough will remain to spin the wool of their sheep, and to manufacture coarse fluffs.

At noon the dinner was announced by the bell; the Indians quitted their work, and sent to fetch their rations in the same vessels as at breakfast; but this second meal was thicker than the first; there was mixed in it corn and maize, and peas and beans; the Indians name it posole. They return again to their labour from two o'clock till four or five; afterwards they attend evening prayers, which continue near an hour, and are followed by a new ration of atole like that at breakfast.

These three distributions are sufficient for the subsistence of the far greater number of Indians; and this very economical soup might perhaps be very profitably adopted in our years of scarcity; some seasoning would certainly be necessary to be added to it, their whole knowledge of cookery consisting in being able to roast the grain before it is reduced into meal. As the Indian women have no vessels of earth or metal for this operation, they perform it in large baskets made of bark, over a little lighted charcoal; they turn these vessels with so much rapidity and address, that they effect the swelling and bursting of the grain without burning the basket, though it is made of very combustible materials.

The corn is distributed to them every morning; and the smallest dishonour, when they give it out, is punished by whipping; but it is very seldom, indeed, they are exposed to it. These punishments are adjudged by Indian magistrates, called caciques; there are in every mission three of them, chosen by the people from amongst those whom the missionaries have not excluded; but these caciques are like the governors of a plantation, passive beings, blind executors of the will of their superiors; and their principal functions consist in serving as beadles in the church, and their maintaining order and an air of contemplation. The women are never whipped in public, but in an inclosed and somewhat distant place, lest perhaps their cries might inspire too lively a compassion, which might stimulate the men to revolt; these last, on the contrary, are exposed to the view of all their fellow-citizens, that their punishment may serve as an example. In general they ask pardon; in which case the executioner lessens the force of his lashes, but the number of them is never receded from.

The rewards are particular small distributions of grain, of which they make little thin cakes, baked on burning coals; and on the great festivals the ration is in beef; many of them eat it raw, especially the fat, which they esteem equal to the best butter or cheese. They skin all animals with the greatest address; and when they are fat, they make, like the ravens, a croaking of pleasure, devouring, at the same time, the most delicate parts with their eyes.

They are frequently permitted to hunt and fish on their own account; and on their return they generally make the missionaries some present in game and fish; but they always proportion the quantity to what is absolutely necessary for them, always taking care to increase it if they hear of any new guests who are on a visit to their superiors. The women rear fowls about their cabins, the eggs of which they give their children. These fowls are the property of the Indians, as well as their clothes, and other little articles of household furniture, and those necessary for the chase. There is no influence of their having robbed each other, though their fastenings to the doors consist only of a simple bundle of straw, which they place across the entrance when all the inhabitants are absent.

The men in the missions have sacrificed much more to Christianity than the women; because they were accustomed to polygamy, and were even in the custom of exposing all the sisters of a family. The women, on the other hand, have acquired the advantage of exclusively receiving the cares of one man only. With this, however, it would appear that they are not satisfied; for the religious have found it necessary to constitute themselves the guardians of female virtue. At an hour after supper, they have the care of shutting up, under lock and key, all those whose husbands are absent, as well as the young girls above nine years of age; and during the day they are entrusted to the superintendence of the matrons. So many precautions are still insufficient; for our voyagers saw men in the stocks, and women in irons, for having deceived the vigilance of these female argufes, who had not been sufficiently sharp-fighted.

The converted Indians have preserved all the ancient usages which their new religion does not prohibit; the same cabins, the same games, the same dresses; that of the richest consists of an otter's skin cloak, which covers their loins, and descends below their groins; the most lazy have only a simple piece of linen cloth, with which they are furnished by the mission, for the purpose of hiding their nakedness; and a small cloak of rabbit's skin covers their shoulders, which is fastened with a pack-thread under the chin; the head and the rest of the body is absolutely naked; some of them, however, have hats of straw, very neatly matted. The women's dress is a cloak of deer skin, ill tanned; those of the missions have a custom of making a small bodice, with sleeves, of them; it is their only apparel, with a small apron of rushes, and a petticoat of flag's skin, which covers their loins, and descends to the middle of the legs. The young girls, under nine years of age, have merely a simple girdle; and the children of the other sex are quite naked.

The independent savages are very frequently at war; but the fear of the Spaniards makes them respect their missions; and this, perhaps, is not one of the least causes of the augmentation of the Christian villages. Their arms are the bow, and arrow pointed with a flint very skillfully worked; these bows are made of wood, and strung with the sinews of an ox. Our author was assured, that they neither eat their prisoners, nor their enemies killed in battle; that, nevertheless, when they had vanquished, and put to death on the field of battle, chiefs, or very courageous men, they have eaten some pieces of them, lest as a sign of hatred or revenge, than as a homage which they paid to their valour, and in the full persuasion that this food would be likely to increase their own courage. They scalp the vanquished as in Canada, and pluck out their eyes; which they have the art of preserving free from corruption, and which they carefully keep as precious signs of their victory. Their custom is to burn their dead, and to deposit their ashes in morais.