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Alfred Robinson (1806-1895) http://tinyurl.com/CLP-Robinson

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Fleas, Indeed

From Life in California, 1846. Read Online Download PDF

Reader: Daniel Maloney

Looking back through a haze of myth, wishful thinking, and revisionist history, it's sometimes hard to imagine what life was really like in the California missions. But one thing everyone might agree on is that mission visitors had a hard time getting to sleep.

In the late 1820's, Bostonian Alfred Robinson visited California missions as a representative of east-coast merchants. In company with a servant—and thousands of tiny companions—Robinson spent a memorable night at Mission San Juan Bautista.

Our light was extinguished and soon Deppe's nasal organs announced how deep was his repose; but I lay restless and uneasy. I could not sleep. The blankets pricked my flesh; the room was warm; and at times it would seem as if a thousand needles penetrated my legs and sides. Can it be the blankets, thought I, or are they filled with fleas; and, if so, how is that Deppe sleeps so sound? The more I reasoned, the more horrible became my situation, and I feared I was to become a martyr to never-ending tortures.

They were fleas indeed! and it appeared to me as if they came in armies to glut their appetites with human blood! It was terrifying! for I thought they would surely suck me dry before morning, and I jumped with horror from the bed to the floor, but it was like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, for the floor was of tile, and crevices their place of abode. I felt them jump upon my legs and feet and, reaching down my hand, I swept them off by the dozens.

Alfred Robinson first published his memoir Life in California in 1846.