In California the herds of cattle, and the sale of their hides and tallow, offer so easy a subsistence, that the population think of no other, and in consequence are poor, degenerate, and dwindling. Their whole education consists in bullock hunting. In this view, unjust and violent as may be the aggressions of the American arms, it is difficult to regret the transfer of the territory into any hands which will bring these fine countries into the general use of mankind, root out a race incapable of improvement, and fill the hills and valleys of this mighty province with corn and man. At present the produce of a bullock in hide, tallow, and horns, is about five dollars, (the beef goes for nothing) of which the farmer's revenue is averaged at a dollar and a half. This often makes up a large income. General Vallego, who had about eight thousand head of cattle, must receive from this source about ten thousand dollars a-year. The former Missions, or Monkish revenues, must have been very large; that of San Jose possessing thirty thousand head of cattle, Santa Clara nearly half the number, and San Gabriel more than both together. It must be acknowledged that the monks had made a handsome affair of holiness in the good old times. Previously to the Mexican revolution their "missions" amounted, in the upper province alone, to twenty-one, every one of course with its endowment on a showy scale. Every monk had an annual stipend of four hundred dollars. But this was mere pocket-money; they had "donations and bequests" from the living and from the dead, a most capacious source of opulence, and of an opulence continually growing, constituting what was termed the pious fund of California. Besides all these things, they had the cheap labour of eighteen thousand converts. But the drones were to be suddenly smoked out of their hives. Mexico declared itself a republic; and, as the first act of a republic, in every part of the world, is to plunder every body, the property of the monks went in the natural way. The lands and beeves, the "donations and bequests were made a national property," in 1825. Still some show of moderation was exhibited, and the names and some of the offices of the missions were preserved. But, in 1836, the Californians took the whole affair into their own hands, threw off the Central Government, and were "free, independent," and beggared. The Missions were then "secularized" at their ease. The Mexican government was furious for a while, and threatened the Californians with all the thunders of its rage; but the vengeance ended in the simple condition, that California should still acknowledge the Mexican supremacy, taking her own way in all that had been done, was doing, and was to be done. The travellers had now an opportunity of seeing the interior of a Californian mansion, the house of the chief proprietor in this quarter, General Vallego.