ays, "If a man eats peanuts he will think peanuts."

"There was nothing that could be swallowed and digested which the San
Diego Indian would not eat. Snakes, half roasted and even raw, were
toothsome dainties. The horned toad and the lizard had favorite places
at each repast. Human parasites were not refused, and mice, gophers,
bats, caterpillars, worms, entrails, and even carrion, were consumed
with a greed that did not stop at pounds. Hittel says that twenty-four
pounds of meat in a day was not too much for a Californian Indian, and
Baegart mentions the case of one native who ate seventeen watermelons at
a sitting. The smoking of wild tobacco was carried on to equal excess."

The saintly Fathers deserve unlimited praise for making them accomplish
so much and behave as well as they did. Those New Englanders who
criticise them as severe in discipline must remember that at the same
period our ancestors were persecuting Quakers and burning witches. The
beautiful hospitality of these early priests should also be mentioned.

Alfred Robinson described a miracle play which he saw performed at San
Diego at Christmas, in 1830, as akin to the miracle plays of mediaeval
Europe. The actors took the part of Gabriel, Lucifer, shepherds, a
hermit, and Bartolo, a lazy vagabond who was the clown and furnished the
element of comedy: the whole interspersed with songs and incidents
better adapted to the stage than to the church.

CHAPTER IV.

EN ROUTE TO LOS ANGELES.

"Bless me, this is pleasant,
Riding on the rail!"

On the Surf Line from San Diego to Los Angeles, a seventy-mile run along
the coast, there is so much to see, admire, and think about, that the
time passes rapidly without napping or nodding. Take a chair seat on the
left of car--the ocean side--and enjoy the panoramic view from the
window: the broad expanse of the Pacific, its long curling breakers, the
seals and porpoises tumbling about in clumsy frolics, the graceful gulls
circling above them, the picturesque canons, and the flocks of birds
starting from the ground, frightened by our approach. This we watch for
more than an hour; then the scene changes, and, leaving the water, we
have glimpses of wondrous carpets of wild-flowers, the golden poppy
predominant, miles of brilliant green on either hand, peeps at the three
missions, the groves at Orange, the town of Santa Ana, and Anaheim, the
parent colony, the first of all the irrigated settlements of