William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

[10] In summer time he dawdles in the woods; in winter time he hangs about the farms. Being known to every settler, he is sure of bite and sup. His hands can bait a snare and throw a hatchet; yet the poor old fellow is so much a savage, he would rather beg than steal, and rather steal than work. Aged, but not venerable, he loafs in front of whisky bars, and fawns on strangers for a drink; his thirst for ardent waters being the only appetite that seems to have outlived his six-score years and five.

You take the Indian as he is — a wreck and waste of nature, even as this altar of San Carlos is a wreck and waste of art. For twenty cents, laid out in whisky, you may hear the story of his life, and in that tale the romance of his tribe.

A youth when the first Spaniards came to Monterey, Capitan Carlos saw Fray Junipero Serra land his company of friars, Don Jose Rivera land his regiment of troops. The Spaniards had already built a Mission house at San Diego, and were creeping upward towards the Golden Gate; but no Carmelo Indian had as yet beheld a White man's face. The fathers raised a cross; the troops unfurled a flag. A psalm was sung, a cannon fired; rites, as they said,