Page:History of California (Bancroft) volume 6.djvu/21

Rh management in the south, while in the north men from the United States predominate.

These later arrivals are already nearly equal numerically to the former, numbering somewhat over 6,000, while the Hispano-Californians may be placed at 1,000 more. The ex-neophyte natives in and about the ranches and towns are estimated at from 3,000 to 4,000, with twice as many among the gentile tribes. The new element, classed as foreign before the conquest of 1846, had from 150 in 1830 grown slowly till 1845, after which it took a bound, assisted by over 2,000 who came as soldiers in the regular and volunteer corps, not including the naval muster-rolls. These troops served to check another sudden influx contemplated by the migrating Mormons, whose economic value as colonists cannot be questioned, in view of their honesty and thrift.' An advance column of about 200 had come in 1846, followed by the Mormon battalion in the United States service, 350 strong, of which a portion remained. The first steady stream of immigrants is composed of stalwart, restless backwoodsmen from the western frontier of the United States; self-reliant, and of ready resource in building homes, even if less enterprising and broadly utilitarian than those who followed them from the eastern states; the latter full of latent vivacity; of strong intellect, here quickening under electric air and new environment; high-strung, attenuated, grave, shrewd, and practical, and with impressive positiveness.

By the side of the Americanized Anglo-Saxon, elevated by vitalizing freedom of thought and intercourse with nature, we find the English representative, burly of mind and body, full of animal energy, marked by aggressive stubbornness, tinctured with brusqueness and conceit. More sympathetic and self-adaptive than the arrogant and prejudiced Englishman, or the coldly calculating Scot, is the omnipresent, quick-witted Celt, and the easy-going, plodding German, with his love of knowledge and deep solidity of