Duhaut-Cilly's Account of California in the Years 1827-28...unlike the Indian tribes in the Eastern forests and Inter-Mountain West, the Indians in California did not cotton to trading beaver pelts for the trade goods that Duhaut brought with him from France................Grizzzly Bear, Coyotes and Deer abound throughout Californiz in the 1820's.........As readers of this blog know, The Griz is the animal pictured on the California flag.............Throughout the early and mid 1800's, California with it's rich Toyon trees and holly berries(that is where the name Hollywood comes from) supported the most dense population of Grizzlies in the lower 48 States.............

August Bernard Duhaut-Cilly (1790-1849) enlisted in Napoleon's navy at the age of seventeen and fought the British from the coast of West Africa to the Indian Ocean. He left the military in 1814 to join the merchant marine and became one of his nation's most accomplished long-distance navigators. Unlike most sea captains, he was also an intellectual who read three languages and was an artist of considerable talent. After this voyage Duhaut-Cilly gave up the sea and retired to his native province of Brittany, where he served as the mayor of Saint Servan for several years before dying in 1849.

Expedition of 1826-1829

In April 1826 Duhaut-Cilly left France with a shipload of merchandise that his backers expected him to trade for furs on the Pacific coast of North America. Following a well-established route, he was to carry these American furs to China, where they would sell at a substantial profit, and then return to France. Unfortunately, the trade goods chosen in France did not much interest the Indians or the Spaniards of California.
Duhaut-Cilly reached San Francisco at the start of 1827 and spent almost two years trying to unload his merchandise. By the end of 1828 he had tried ports from San Francisco to Peru, with two side trips to Hawaii. He finally reached China in December 1828, disposed of such cargo as he'd been able to assemble, rounded the Horn of Africa, and arrived back in France on July 19, 1829.

" At last we mounted our horses and, for about three leagues, followed one side of a long valley, leaving, on the right hand and on the left, high verdant hills where the mission herds were grazing. At every moment we saw those animals I have already described under the name of coyotes: their pelt is far from being as beautiful as that of the coyotes of Lower California; their color here tends much more to a dull grey; the tail is less covered with hair, and the fur is usually thinner.

Reaching the southern end of the valley, we passed a ravine, and soon were in the plain, in the middle of which flows a brook, forming here and there little lakes. We dismounted on the edge of one of these ponds, and having tethered our horses, we went, each one by himself, to shoot the ducks of divers species, and the wild geese which we found in large numbers everywhere. Some of us killed, also, a species of heron, called in the country grulla [crane], considered by the people a delicate food. 

As we went on, the mountains we had -on our right, and which, beginning at the entrance to San Francisco, are at first barren and sandy, were covered with forests and fir trees up to their summits. Soon we reached an immense grove of beautiful oaks, mixed with some other full grown trees, into which we penetrated by an even and comfortable path.

 These magnificent woods, planted by nature, are not tangled with lianas or shrubs; they are arranged in thick, dense clusters, or scattered here and there, without, however, leaving between any considerable clearings. A grass of tender green is everywhere spread out like a carpet, and the traveller regrets that such beautiful spots have no other inhabitants than coyotes and bears. But we saw no animal of this latter species. They seldom attack passers-by; but the sight of them, and their odor, being enough to frighten horses and render them unmanageable

If I be permitted to compare small things with great, it is in this way we grew accustomed in California to living, so to speak, among bears and rattlesnakes. in the forests and even in the fields. The Californians claim they seldom attack passers-by, and that, only when one happens to be near them, or arouses their savageness by teasing them, do they make use of their terrible claws and their extraordinary strength. ""But without waiting to see whether, near the dark den, The men fear the bears, or the bears fear the men,""

I saw at this time a soldier bearing recent and indisputable proofs that they are not always of a very peaceful disposition. Fray Tonads told me he himself had saved the man's life, when the bear had already buried its claws in his right side and in his face. By the merest chance, this religious, walking in a very solitary road, in company with several men, had heard the cries of this unfortunate man, whom his horse, motionless with fear, had not been able to save; and having quickened his step and made a good deal of noise, the savage beast had left its prey and taken to flight. This man related that, reaching this narrow spot in the road, he had suddenly found himself face to face with the bear, two steps away; that not prepared for a fight, he had tried to escape the danger by turning back; but the animal had immediately thrown itself upon the crupper of his horse and had stopped him short.

Be that as it may, bears are very common in the environs; and without going farther than five or six leagues from San Francisco, they are often seen in herds.

 

In California, three or four horsemen, armed with their ropes, look upon going to attack a bear as a pleasure party: they bait it with a dead animal and wait silently. If the bear defend itself, and wish to rush upon one of them, the instant is favorable for the others to snare it from behind. If it flee, as happens most frequently, the best mounted rider attempts to cut off its way and force it to fight. The first lazo catching it leaves it only enough freedom to run upon the one who snared it; but the rest come and easily throw their own over it: they stretch them in every direction, and hold it fast, while one dismounts and ties its four paws. It is placed upon a hide and dragged where it is wanted.

These animals are also destroyed in a more expeditious and less dangerous manner. Between the branches of a tree is constructed a trapiste (scaffolding), ten or fifteen feet above the ground, and several men are kept there armed with rifles, each one loaded with two bullets. Twenty paces from the tree is a horse, dead several days, the decay of which begins to make itself manifest. The bears, which, they say, have a very acute sense of smell, are drawn thither from a long way; and as they come, they are shot with great ease by the hunters. Padre Viader, president of Mission Santa Clara, a modest and truthful man, assured me he himself had killed a hundred in this way.
Others dig a deep pit, covered over with a strong hurdle of boughs, on which they put some flesh of the kind to allure bears; and keeping themselves below, they kill them with thrusts or rifle shots.

From time to tune we descried large deer herds. They were wandering in bands over these sloping pasture grounds, and we saw them run, browse, rush over the sides of these hills, so steep sometimes, that we could hardly imagine how they were able to hold themselves there without falling.
There are also many bears in these wooded places; but as these animals seldom appear except at night, we saw none. But a man named Cipriano, who was with us in the long boat, related to me that, passing some months before in this channel, one of these ferocious beasts, which was swimming to Los Angeles Island, approached the boat, intending to climb into it, when some soldiers who were in it, with their arms, fired four balls at it at close range, just as the bear was getting its claws upon the boat, and killed it stone dead

 The hills of this part of California, and the plains they leave between them, support an immense quantity of deer of prodigious strength and size.