rts are
concerned. But he is ardent in his pursuit of amusement and pleasure,
and these consist chiefly in the fandango, the game of monte,
horse-racing, and bull and bear-baiting. They gamble freely and
desperately, but pay their losses with the most strict punctuality, at
any and every sacrifice, and manifest but little concern about them.
They are obedient to their magistrates, and in all disputed cases
decided by them, acquiesce without uttering a word of complaint. They
have been accused of treachery and insincerity. Whatever may have been
the grounds for these accusations in particular instances, I know not;
but, judging from my own observation and experience, they are as free
from these qualities as our own people.

While the men are employed in attending to the herds of cattle and
horses, and engaged in their other amusements, the women (I speak of
the middle classes on the ranchos) superintend and perform most of the
drudgery appertaining to housekeeping, and the cultivation of the
gardens, from whence are drawn such vegetables as are consumed at the
table. These are few, consisting of _frijoles_, potatoes, onions, and
_chiles_. The assistants in these labours are the Indian men and women,
legally reduced to servitude.

The soil of that portion of California between the Sierra Nevada and
the Pacific will compare, in point of fertility, with any that I have
seen elsewhere. As I have already described such portions of it as have
come under my observation, it is unnecessary for me here to descend to
particulars. Wheat, barley, and other small grains, with hemp, flax,
and tobacco, can be produced in all the valleys, without irrigation. To
produce maize, potatoes, and other garden vegetables, irrigation is
necessary. Oats and mustard grow spontaneously, with such rankness as
to be considered nuisances upon the soil. I have forced my way through
thousands of acres of these, higher than my head when mounted on a
horse. The oats grow to the summits of the hills, but they are not here
so tall and rank as in the valleys.

The varieties of grasses are greater than on the Atlantic side of the
continent, and far more nutritious. I have seen seven different kinds
of clover, several of them in a dry state, depositing a seed upon the
ground so abundant as to cover it, which is lapped up by the cattle and
horses and other animals, as corn or oats, when threshed, would be with
us. All the grasses, and they cover the entire co