"
General shiftlessness and inertia extended also to those branches
wherein the Californian was supposed to excel. Even in the matter of
cattle and sheep, the stock was very inferior to that brought into the
country by the Americans, and such a thing as crossing stock or
improving the breed of either cattle or horses was never thought of. The
cattle were long-horned, rough-skinned animals, and the beef was tough
and coarse. The sheep, while of Spanish stock, were very far from being
Spanish merino. Their wool was of the poorest quality, entirely unfit
for exportation, and their meat was not a favorite food.
There were practically no manufactures on the whole coast. The
inhabitants depended for all luxuries and necessities on foreign trade,
and in exchange gave hide and tallow from the semi-wild cattle that
roamed the hills. Even this trade was discouraged by heavy import duties
which amounted at times to one hundred per cent of the value. Such
conditions naturally led to extensive smuggling which was connived at by
most officials, high and low, and even by the monks of the missions
themselves.
Although the chief reason for Spanish occupancy was to hold the country,
the provisions for defense were not only inadequate but careless. Thomes
says, in _Land and Sea_, that the fort at Monterey was "armed with four
long brass nine-pounders, the handsomest guns that I ever saw all
covered with scroll work and figures.
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