ficiently free from jealousies amongst themselves to care to change their lazy life for active rebellion, to end in certain defeat. The Irish element in Los Angelos is very strong. On St. Patrick's day we witnessed the procession of a Fenian lodge. A hundred and twenty-eight men, wearing regalia, walked two-and-two through the street, preceded by a band, and followed by carriages containing priests, ladies and professional gamblers. An oration was afterwards delivered, the proceeds of the entertainment "to be devoted to the wives and children of Irishmen confined in British dungeons for their political faith." A body guard of Mexican horsemen in their broad hats and feathers, gave color to the scene.

Near Los Angelos are still to be seen several of those old Franciscan mission houses, to which allusion had been made before. That of St. Gabriel still retains, strange to say, a few of its silver bells. The figure of the angel over the altar was a specimen of the style of work executed for the friars by the native Indians. He was represented in full war-paint, with a plume of feathers in his hair. The church, which was empty and extremely plain, had probably been robbed at no distant period of its former decorations. The worshipers were Spanish Californians (half-breeds with the Indians) of the very poorest class, and the padres who minister to them are no better off than they. Ill-treatment has made them dread the face of an American, and the poor old man who opened the door of his church to us looked half scared as he did so, pointing the while to the marks of batterings it has received on former occasions.

We had come to Los Angelos by sea, and determined to return over land, passing through the San Fernando pass, and descending at Fort Tejin to the extensive alkaline plain of Central California. This spur of the Sierra is still infested by Mexican banditti. ⚫ few days before, one of their leaders, Vasquez, has been captured and hanged at Sacramento, an example which, though the rest of his band swore revenge, has perhaps put a stop to the periodical murders and robberies then committed. After crossing the plain, our route lay to Merced and the Yosemité Valley. This extraordinary gulf in the heart of the Sierra, eight miles long, one mile wide, and walled in by perpendicular granite cliffs nearly a mile in height, was, until the trail was betrayed in 1856, the secure and impregnable fastness of a tribe of Californian Indians. The district has now been secured as a national park belonging to the United States, and the Indian bark lodges have been replaced by "grand hotels." Still the survivors of the primitive occupants wander about the surrounding country, and we were fortunate enough to make their acquaintance. We found the first traces of their presence on the side of a river twenty-five miles from the valley. The sandy banks had been their camping ground, and the place was strewn with chips and cores of obsidian-the refuse of a manufactory of those beautiful little arrow-points with which they still bring down small game.

The material they derive from the Lake Moro, some seventy miles distant. On the surface of a flat granite rock close by were numerous holes, made by pounding acorns. Branches had been stuck up around the rock to serve as a sun-shade for the women at work. At no great distance a rude circular timber fence marked the scene of a recent funeral ceremony called the " 'pow-wow.' It much resembles an Irish death-wake, the people blacking their faces, yelling, wailing, and dancing. In this instance the orgie had been kept up for six nights in succession over the body of a squaw. A little nearer the stream stood a hut of singular construction, looking like a simple mound of earth with a trench dug round it. It had been made by digging a round hole in the ground of the required diameter, and bringing poles and slices of bark to meet in the middle. These were supported in their places by a framework of two poles with a third laid across them. The whole was covered in with earth: it was twelve feet in diameter, and high enough to stand upright in. The doorway was only three and-a-half feet high, but its structure showed no slight skill. Outside lay a pile of ashes, and the stream ran not twenty yards off. This is called a "sweat-house," or, as we should say, a Turkish bath.' The Indians shut themselves tight in, light a fire in the center, and dance round. The intolerable smoke and heat is to them no inconvenience, and their object is to get into a profuse perspiration, which done, they suddenly open the door, rush out and plunge into the water. This operation is the preliminary to hunting, since it prevents the smell of their bodies being detected by the beasts, and it is probable also that they have discovered that it gives them elasticity of muscle. It is not a little curious to find that this custom prevailed all along the western coast, from Alaska to the old Aztec peoples of Mexico, and that amongst the latter it became a religious observance, fine buildings being erected for the performance of the rite. These Yosemite Indians feed principally on roots, but when hard pressed they will eat worms, lizards, and lice. Formerly they wore no clothing, but they have recently adopted blankets and other raiment when they can get it. On the banks of some of the rivers, where clam shells are abundant, the sites of their summer quarters are marked by shell mounds, sometimes 300 yards in length, and in these flint implements are found.

A few days after we had seen this spot, we were able to pay a visit to the winter residence of the chief of the tribe, whose name was "Bullock." It was a log hut, with a chimney at one end of clay and stones, built in imitation of a white man's house. Near it stood the old native lodge, made of strips of bark, but which, from its ruinous condition, had evidently been abandoned for the more commodious novelty. The chimney of the latter the occupants were extremely proud of. An old squaw (the squaws are the hewers water) had dug the clay for it with her

of wood and drawers of

own hands out of a pit near by. The young "bucks" of the tribe were out squirrel-hunting, and three squaws were engaged in preparing flour from acorns. One was shelling them with her teeth, and laying them on a blanket to dry. Another was pounding them on a granite rock, with a round stone muller: while a third was separating the good flour from the bad, by tossing it cleverly in a target-shaped basket. They have no pottery, but baskets supply its place, woven into elegant shapes, and capable of holding water. The bread is subsequently baked in holes in the earth. For drink they press a rough cider from the manzaneta berry. On looking into the cabin, we saw evidence of an approach to civilization, in a good pair of boots and a rifle the latter used to kill big game, while the flint-tipped arrows bring down the small. A sad sight presented itself as soon as our eyes became accustomed to the darkness. On the floor, moaning piteously and looking up to us for help, which we had no power to render, lay the poor old chief himself. He had met with an accident, broken his leg we were told. No surgical aid had been called in, nor could any relief be obtained for the acute pain he had been in for weeks. The two hideous squaws who attended him made us understand that mortification had set in. Finding that he was dying, in truly patriarchal style, he had, only the day before, summoned his tribe around him, given his last instructions, and appointed his successor. However filthy the Californian Indian may be in his habits, an incident like this is enough to convince us, that, had his white brother treated him otherwise than he has, there was a chance at least that he might have been raised to a state of comparative civilization. But now the time is past. The condition of this old chieftain was the condition of his people. Nothing is left for them but to fulfill their destiny, and soon theplace that knew them will know them no more" forever.

In the "Digger" Indian, the lowest of his race, these sketches of Californian society find an appropriate close. The object of this article will have been gained if it has brought together some few facts and considerations for the student of sociology at large, and if we have been able to impart to the reader some portion of that interest which our sojourn in the country awakened in ourselves.— Quarterly Review.

THE OLDEST RELIGIOUS BUILDINGS IN CHRISTENDOM.

IN neighboring valleys of the great chalk plateau which stands between the Nile and the Gulf of Suez, lie two of the most ancient, and it may even be said, looking at their results, two of the most influential institutions of Christendom. The monasteries of St. Antony the Abbot and St. Paul of Thebes, far hidden from the world, like river sources, in these rocky solitudes, are the first parents of the whole monastic system of the West, which has moved so strongly through history ever since. It is disputed between the monks of these two cloisters which is the earlier; but Antony and Paul were contemporaries, and both buildings probably originated about the middle of the fourth century of our era. Though so near Cairo, they are seldom visited by travelers, either native or European. They lie out of the way of the ordinary routes of traffic; they have never been the object of religious pilgrimages, because the Coptic Church has always discouraged the superstitious worship of saints and relics; and the ignoble army of the tourists have been kept back, partly because their attention has never been directed to them, and partly because they cannot be reached without a difficult desert journey extending, between going and coming, over four or five days. Dr. Schweinfurth, the famous explorer, has visited them repeatedly, and gives us a highly interesting account of them.

The cloisters stand in parallel valleys, separated by a single ridge, and opening into the great Wadi Arabah, which is some forty miles wide. As the traveler in this region penetrates through the rocky hills whose naked white sides dazzle him in the eastern sun, the comparatively luxurious and manifold vegetation of many of these valleys makes an extraordinary impression upon him. Some of them, says Schweinfurth, are like bits of the promised land, with a flora identical with that of Palestine, and much more abundant than in any other part of the deserts of Egypt. The rainfall, though small, is yet slightly more than in the latter, and the rocky mountain sides have this advantage, that they send down all the rain they receive to the soil at their feet. Schweinfurth thinks a little rain goes a long way in these parts, and that the plants and animals, like the human inhabitants, necessarily live on fasting diet. Most of the creatures of the desert never drink; even the gazelle finds enough water in the herbs it feeds on; and those herbs themselves may be like-gifted. A fasting life is a physical law of the land, and the numerous hermits who dwelt for years in caves and holes there in the time of St. Antony, only lived according to nature, in a deeper sense than they suspected. The dates that grow about a single well would be enough to sustain an ascetic for a twelvemonth, without

considering the hares and other animals that might afford him occasional meals; and an edible root, something like the carrot, is found in great abundance in this district of the desert, so that the stories told of the primitive Egyptian anchorites are far from incredible. The desert is not all desert; and Schweinfurth says, that in spite of the bare cliffs that overhang it, the quarter where Antony and Paul of Thebes settled is a perfect earthly paradise, as compared with the valley of the Subiaco in Italy, where St. Benedict dwelt; and he can easily understand how men should live there, as they did, for nearly a hundred years, without suffering any hardships, or conceiving the smallest wish to depart.

St. Antony fixed his abode in a cave near one of the very few perennial wells which exist in that district, and which, though all containing salt or other mineral ingredient, are of priceless value in such a climate. Round this well grows a small plantation of date palms, and in front of these palms have been erected the chapels and dwelling-houses of the present Monastery of St. Antony. Plots of garden or tilled land surround them, and the whole is encompassed by a strong wall. According to the tradition of the monks, this monastery has existed for 1,562 years, and, except for seventy years during the disorderly period following the first conquest of Egypt by the Turks three hundred and seventy years ago, it has been occupied all that time. We have an account of its founder, Antony, written by his contemporary, St. Athanasius. He was born of a rich Egyptian family in A.D. 251, and was left, by the premature death of both his parents, in possession of much estate while still a boy. Being a diligent attender at church, he was struck one day by the story of the rich young man, which was read as a lesson, and felt himself impelled to give all he had away to the poor. Committing his only sister to the care of friends, he betook himself to the solitudes where many hermits still lived, and after receiving their counsel and comfort, and passing through frequent struggles with the devil, he resolved to spend his whole days in contemplation in the desert. At the age of thirty-five, he discovered the ruins of an old castle not far from the Nile valley, and made himself a dwelling out of them, while a friend brought him twice a year the necessary provision of bread and water. The Egyptians to this day have great skill in baking a kind of bread which will keep good for more than a twelvemonth. After twenty years of this life, during which he found constant occupation in preaching to the people, who began in great numbers to seek him out, he heard of the persecution of the Christians in Egypt under Maximinus's administration, and went to Alexandria longing for martyrdom. A hundred times he plunged into danger, and a hundred times he escaped, and concluding that he was reserved for another destiny, he returned to the desert, and falling in with an Arab caravan, accompanied it into the district where he finally settled, and where the present monastery