These Indians are a wretched and degenerate race, cowardly, treacherous, filthy and indolent. Instead of living by hunting, as was the case with our tribe, and nearly all the others east of the California Mountains, these obtained a scanty subsistence by digging for roots. The women do the digging whilst the men stay in the lodges or are playing at some game. I have seen hundreds of the women at a time out in this employment. They carry on their backs heavy baskets of the shape of old fashioned straw beehives, and in their hands long sticks with which to dig the roots. Early in the morning they go out and keep at work until evening, when they return with their baskets full of roots. Sometimes they procure enough not only for their present eating, but to lay up for winter use. The men among the Digger Indians wear very long hair, but that of the women is cut short. Both are nearly naked, and filthy in the extreme. Most of them are tatooed, the women especially displaying in general a large number of designs on their person. They do this merely for ornament, and not for the purpose of showing a difference in rank as is the case in most tribes where the custom exists. Their houses or lodges are very simple. In the summer they put a number of bushes together in the shape of a cone, and into this they creep for shelter from the sun by day, and to sleep by night. These lodges or tents are more designed to keep off the rays of the sun than for shelter from inclement weather. For the cold and wet seasons the Diggers in the northern part of California have a different kind of dwelling. They dig a pit several feet deep, of the size of the proposed lodge. Then they drive poles into the earth around the edge of the pit, and bend them over so that they will meet at the top, where they are fastened together, making a covering over the pit. They then cover the whole building with earth to the thickness of several inches, or even a foot, leaving a small hole at the top to serve as a chimney. Another hole is made at the side, large enough to admit the body. When they wish to sleep they build a fire in the center of the lodge, then creep in feet foremost and lie in that position to the fire. The Diggers have a curious way of marrying. When a man takes a fancy to a girl and wants her as his squaw, he speaks to her parents and talks to her a little. Then he lies down with her, and if she lies still they are considered man and wife; but if she gets up and runs away, the courtship is at an end, and the man never tries to get her again. A Digger man can have as many wives as he chooses, but the woman can only have one husband.