There are a great many interesting stories about the first settlement of San Gabriel, and the habits and customs of the Indians there. They were a very polite people to each other, and used to train their children in some respects very carefully.

If a child were sent to bring water to an older person, and he tasted it on the way, he was made to throw the water out and go and bring fresh water; when two grown-up persons were talking together, if a child ran between them, he was told that he had done an uncivil thing. These are only specimens of their rules for polite behavior. They seem to me as good as ours.

These Indians were very fond of flowers, of which the whole country is full. They used to make long garlands and wreaths, not only to wear on their heads, but to reach way down to their feet. These they wore at festivals and celebrations; and sometimes at these festivals they used to have what they called “song contests.”

Two of the best singers, or poets, would be matched together to see which could sing the better, or make the better verses. That seems to me a more interesting kind of match than the spelling matches we have in our villages.

But there is nothing of this sort to be seen in San Gabriel now, or indeed anywhere in California. The Indians have been driven away by the white people who wanted their lands; year by year more and more white people have come, and the Indians have been robbed of more and more of their lands, and have died off by hundreds, until there are not many left.

Mr. Connor was much interested in collecting all he could of the curious stone bowls and pestles they used to make, and of their baskets and lace work. He spent much of his time riding about the country; and whenever he came to an Indian hut he would stop and ask if they had any stone bowls they would like to sell.

The bowls especially were a great curiosity. Nobody knew how long ago they had been made. When the missionaries first came to the country they found the Indians using them; they had them of all sizes, from those so large that they are almost more than a man can lift down to the tiny ones no bigger than a tea-cup. But big and little, they were all made in the same way out of solid stone, scooped out in the middle, by rubbing another stone round and round on them.

Even yet people who are searching for such curiosities sometimes find big grave mounds in which dozens of them are buried—buried side by side with the people who used to eat out of them. There is nothing left of the people but their skulls and a few bones; but the bowls will last as long as the world stands.

—Helen Hunt Jackson.