Intemperance, Too, Is A Common Vice Among The Indians.
The Spaniards, On The Contrary, Are Very Abstemious, And I Do Not
Remember Ever Having Seen A Spaniard Intoxicated.
Such are the people who inhabit a country embracing four or five
hundred miles of sea-coast, with several
Good harbors; with fine
forests in the north; the waters filled with fish, and the plains
covered with thousands of herds of cattle; blessed with a climate,
than which there can be no better in the world; free from all
manner of diseases, whether epidemic or endemic; and with a soil
in which corn yields from seventy to eighty fold. In the hands
of an enterprising people, what a country this might be! we are
ready to say. Yet how long would a people remain so, in such a
country? The Americans (as those from the United States are
called) and Englishmen, who are fast filling up the principal
towns, and getting the trade into their hands, are indeed more
industrious and effective than the Spaniards; yet their children
are brought up Spaniards, in every respect, and if the "California
fever" (laziness) spares the first generation, it always attacks
the second.
CHAPTER XXII
LIFE ON SHORE - THE ALERT
Saturday, July 18th. This day, sailed the Mexican hermaphrodite brig,
Fazio, for San Blas and Mazatlan. This was the brig which was driven
ashore at San Pedro in a south-easter, and had been lying at San Diego
to repair and take in her cargo.
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