The period of war, near war and oppression lasted rather less than twenty years and was succeeded by a period of eviction of somewhat longer duration. At first, when a white man filed on a tract of land and summarily ejected any Indians he might find living there, the Indians could move on to some adjoining tract, where the opportunities for starvation were equally good. But as time went on, land became much scarcer and fewer land owners were willing to allow Indians to occupy their ranches even in small part. The evictions continued and as those recently evicted could find no unoccupied tract to live on, they began to crowd into other settlements, which had not yet been summoned to move. The result was that in many parts of the State, the Indians gradually concentrated in small settlements, locally known as rancherias, where they lived upon the sufferance of some kindly-disposed land owner. A change in ownership of the land usually meant eviction for the Indians. In these rancherias the conditions were unspeakable, both as to sanitation and morals. The Indians felt they were in their last ditch and that there was nothing for them to look forward to but extinction. The Indians were surrounded by civilization, but not of it. They came in contact chiefly with the vices of civilization and the vicious white element. Forty years after the American occupation three-fourths of the California Indians had still to learn what a missionary might be and nine-tenths of them were still heathen. The priest and the Levite had passed by on the other side, and the good Samaritan had been unavoidably detained in Jerusalem.