The Indian Sprang
From His Falling Horse, Drew Out The Knife, And Plunged It Into
The Other Indian's Breast, Over
His shoulder, and laid him dead.
The poor fellow was seized at once, clapped into the calabozo,
and kept there
Until an answer could be received from Monterey.
A few weeks afterwards, I saw the poor wretch, sitting on the
bare ground, in front of the calabozo, with his feet chained to
a stake, and handcuffs about his wrists. I knew there was very
little hope for him. Although the deed was done in hot blood,
the horse on which he was sitting being his own, and a great
favorite, yet he was an Indian, and that was enough. In about a
week after I saw him, I heard that he had been shot. These few
instances will serve to give one a notion of the distribution of
justice in California.
In their domestic relations, these people are no better than in their
public. The men are thriftless, proud, and extravagant, and very
much given to gaming; and the women have but little education,
and a good deal of beauty, and their morality, of course, is none of
the best; yet the instances of infidelity are much less frequent than
one would at first suppose. In fact, one vice is set over against
another; and thus, something like a balance is obtained. The women
have but little virtue, but then the jealousy of their husbands is
extreme, and their revenge deadly and almost certain.
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