Naturally most of the scientific inquiries of the time were, like those of Humboldt, based on tradition rather than on direct observation. * * * * * Toward the end of the first third of the century an important contribution to actual knowledge of Seriland and the Seri at last grew out of the pearl industry. In May, 1825, Lieutenant R. W. H. Hardy, R. N., was commissioned by the “General Pearl and Coral Fishery Association of London” to investigate the pearl fisheries of the Californian gulf; and his task was performed with promptness and energy. On February 13, 1826, he visited Pitic (under Hermosillo): Half a league short [south] of it is another small place, called the Pueblo de los Céres, inhabited by a squalid race of Indians who are said to indulge in constant habits of intemperance and to have lost the fire of the warrior. In its stead they manifest the sullen stupidity peculiar to those who, feeling themselves unfitted for companionship, strive to vent their pusillanimous rage upon objects the most helpless and unoffending, such as women, children, and dogs, who appear to be the chief victims of their revenge.[141] [141] Travels in the Interior of Mexico in 1825, 1826, 1827, and 1828; London, 1829, p. 95. His chief object in visiting Pitic was to obtain information concerning Tiburon, its natives, and its pearl-oyster beds; and he was rewarded with characteristic accounts of the ferocity of the tribesmen and their use of poisoned arrows, which he received with some incredulity.[142] [142] Ibid., p. 107.