being assured, ultimate possession of the whole of the coast line between would follow. Little these gladdened people in Spain and Mexico realized, however, the cost of the triumph over which they rejoiced, or the true condition of the men who had won it.

two parties had set off-one by sea in the San Antonio. With this went Father Junipero, still feeble from illness. Father Crespi, undaunted by his former six months of wandering, joined the land party, reaching the Point of Pines, on Monterey Harbor, seven days before the ship arrived. As soon as she came in sight bonfires were lighted on the rocks, and the ship answered by firing cannon. It was a great rejoicing. The next day, June 1st, the officers of the two parties met, and exchanged congratulations; and on the third they took formal possession of the place: first, in the name of the Church, by religious ceremonies; secondly, in the name of the King of Spain, unfurling the royal standard, and planting it in the ground, side by side with the cross. To one familiar with the beauty of the Monterey shore in June, the picture of this scene is vivid. The sand-dunes were ablaze with color; lupines in high, waving masses, white and yellow; and great mats of the glittering ice-plant, with myriads of rosecolored umbels, lying flat on the white sand. Many rods inland, the air was sweet with their fragrance, borne by the strong sea-wind. On long cliffs of broken, tempest-piled rocks stood ranks upon ranks of grand old cypress trees,-gnarled, bent, twisted, defiant, full of both pathos and triumph in their loneliness, in this the only spot on earth to which they are native.

The history of the next fifteen years is a history of struggle, hardship, and heroic achievement. The indefatigable Serra was the mainspring and support of it all. There seemed no limit to his endurance, no bound to his desires; nothing daunted his courage or chilled his faith. When, in the sixth year after the founding of the San Diego Mission, it was attacked by hostile Indians, one of the fathers being most cruelly murdered, and the buildings burned to the ground, Father Junipero exclaimed, "Thank God! The seed of the Gospel is now watered by the blood of a martyr; that mission is henceforth established"; and in a few months he was on the spot, with money and materials, ready for rebuilding; pressing sailors, neophytes, soldiers, into the service; working with his own hands also, spite of the fears and protestations of all, and only desisting on positive orders from the military commander. He journeyed, frequently on foot, back and forth through the country, founding a new mission whenever, by his urgent letters to the College of San Fernando and to the Mexican viceroys, he had gathered together men and money enough to do so. In 1772, when perplexities seemed inextricably thickened and supplies had fallen so short that starvation threatened the missions, he took ship to San Blas. With no companion except one Indian boy, he toiled on foot from San Blas to Guadalajara, two hundred and forty miles. Here they both fell ill of fever, and sank so low that they were supposed to be dying, and the Holy Viaticum was administered to them. But they recovered, and, while only partly convalescent, pushed on again, reaching the city of

The booth of boughs in which the mass was performed was built under a large oak, on the same spot where Viscayno had landed and his Carmelite monks had said mass one hundred and sixty-seven years before. The ceremonies closed with a ringing Te Deum,sailors, soldiers, monks, alike jubilant.

Re

Pio.de

S.Fra

Prd.

Ena Monte Rey

Pr.

When the news of the founding of this second mission reached the city of Mexico, there was a furore of excitement. The bells of the city were rung; people ran up and down the streets telling each other; and the viceroy held at his palace a grand reception, to which went all persons of note, eager to congratulate him and Galvez. Printed proclamations, giving full accounts, were circulated, not only in Mexico but throughout Spain. No province so remote, no home so lowly, as to fail to hear the good news. It was indeed good news to both state and church. The fact of the occupation of the new country was accomplished; the scheme for the conversion and salvation of the savage race was fairly inaugurated; Monterey and San Diego

M.S.Louis

Pres'o.d Barb'a M.S.Buenaventura

Pto.de

Sn. Diego

Colorado

M.S.Vice

Gila

M.S.Pedroy S.Pab'o

• La Pur'ma Con'on

MAP OF THE COAST LINE, DRAWN IN 1787.

Mexico in February, 1773. Hard-hearted

indeed must the Mexican viceroy have been to refuse to heed the prayers of an aged man who had given such proofs as this of his earnestness and devotion. The difficulties were cleared up, money and supplies obtained, and Father Junipero returned to his post with a joyful heart. Before leaving, he kissed the feet of the friars in the college, and asked their blessing, saying that they would never behold him more.

Indians had been prevailed upon to bring an infant to receive the consecration. Everything was ready: Father Junipero had raised his hand to sprinkle the child's face; suddenly heathen terror got the better of the parents, and in the twinkling of an eye they snatched their babe and ran. Tears rolled down Father Junipero's cheeks: he declared that

only some unworthiness in himself could have led to such a disaster; and to the day of his death he could never tell the story without tears, thinking it must be owing to his sins that the soul of that particular child had been lost.

When he preached he was carried out of himself by the fervor of his desire to impress his hearers. Baring his breast, he would beat it violently with a stone, or burn the flesh with a lighted torch, to enhance the

Father Junipero's most insatiable passion was for baptizing Indians, the saving of one soul thus from death filled him with unspeakable joy. His biographer illustrates this by the narrative of the first infant baptism attempted at the San Diego Mission. The

effect of his descriptions of the tortures of hell. There is in his memoir a curious engraving, showing him lifted high above a motley group of listeners, holding in his hands the blazing torch and the stone.

In the same book is an outline map of California as he knew it. It is of the coast line from San Diego to San Francisco, and the only objects marked on it are the missions and dotted lines showing the roads leading from one to another. All the rest is a blank.

There were nine of these missions, founded by Serra, before his death in 1784. They were founded in the following order:

San Diego, July 16, 1769; San Carlos de Monterey, June 3, 1770; San Antonio de Padua, July 14, 1771; San Gabriel, September 8, 1771; San Luis Obispo, September 1, 1772; San Francisco (Dolores), October

who went with him to establish the mission of San Antonio. With his little train of soldiers, and mules laden with a few weeks' supplies, he wandered off into the unexplored wilderness sixty miles south of Monterey, looking eagerly for river valleys promising fertility. As soon as the beautiful oak-shaded plain, with its river swift and full even in July, caught his eye, he ordered a halt, seized the bells, tied them to an oak bough, and fell to ringing them with might and main, crying aloud: "Hear, hear, Ŏ ye Gentiles! Come to the Holy Church! Come to the faith of Jesus Christ!" Not a human creature was in sight, save his own band, and his companion remonstrated with him. "Let me alone," cried Father Junipero. "Let me unburden my heart, which could wish that this bell should be heard by all the world, or at least by all the Gentiles in these mountains"; and he rang on till the echoes answered, and one astonished Indian appeared -the first instance in which a native had been present at the foundation of a mission. Not long afterward came a very aged Indian woman named Agreda, begging to

justified Father Junipero's selection. The site proved one of the richest and most repaying, including, finally, seven large farms with a chapel on each, and being famous for the best wheat grown and the best flour made in the country. The curious mill in which the flour was ground is still to be seen-a most interesting ruin. It was run by water brought in a stone-walled ditch for many miles, and driven through a funnel-shaped flume so as to strike the side of a large water-wheel, revolving horizontally on a shaft. The building of this aqueduct, and the placing of the wheel, were the work of an Indian named Nolberto, who took the idea from the balancewheel of a watch, and did all the work with his own hands. The walls are broken now; and the sands have so blown in and piled around the entrance, that the old wheel seems buried in a cellar; linnets have builded nests in the dusky corners, and are so seldom disturbed that their bright eyes gaze with placid unconcern at curious intruders.

Many interesting incidents are recorded in connection with the establishment of these first missions. At San Gabriel; the Indians

routine was the same in all cases. A cross was set up; a booth of branches was built; the ground and the booth were consecrated by holy water and christened by the name of a saint; a mass was performed; the neighboring Indians, if there were any, were roused and summoned by the ringing of bells swung on limbs of trees; presents of cloth and trinkets were given them to inspire them with trust, and thus a mission was founded. Two monks (never, at first, more) were appointed to take charge of this cross and booth, and to win, baptize, convert, and teach all the Indians to be reached in the region. They had for guard and help a few soldiers, and sometimes a few already partly civilized and Christianized Indians; several head of cattle, some tools and seeds, and holy vessels for the church service, completed their store of weapons, spiritual and secular, offensive and defensive, with which to conquer the wilderness and its savages. There needs no work of the imagination to help this picture. Taken in its sternest realism it is vivid and thrilling; contrasting the wretched poverty of these singlehanded beginnings with the final splendor and riches attained, the result seems well-nigh miraculous.

From the rough booth of boughs and reeds of 1770 to the pillars, arched corridors and domes of the stately stone churches of a halfcentury later, is a change only a degree less wonderful than the change in the Indian, from the naked savage, with his one stone tool, grinding acorn-meal in a rock bowl, to the industrious tiller of soil, weaver of cloth, worker in metals, and singer of sacred hymns. The steps of this change were slow at first. In 1772, at the end of five years' work, five missions had been founded, and four hundred and ninety-one Indians baptized. There were then, in these five missions, but nineteen friars and sixty soldiers. In 1786, La Perouse, a French naval commander, who voyaged along the California coast, leaves it on record that there were but two hundred and eightytwo soldiers, and about one hundred officers and friars, all told, in both Upper and Lower California, from Cape Saint Lucas to San Francisco, a line of eight hundred leagues. At this time there were five thousand one hundred and forty-three Indians, in the missions of Upper California alone. In the year 1800 there were, at the mission of San Diego, fifteen hundred and twenty-one Indians; and the San Diego garrison, three miles away from the mission, numbered only one hundred and sixty-seven souls,-officers, soldiers, servants, women, and children. Such figures as these seem sufficient refutation of the idea sometimes advanced, that the Indians were con

verted by force and held in subjection by terror. There is still preserved in the archives of the Franciscan College at Santa Barbara, a letter written by Father Junipero to the Viceroy of Mexico, in 1776, imploring him to send a force of eighty soldiers to be divided among seven missions. He patiently explains that the friars, stationed by twos, at new missions, from sixty to a hundred miles distant from each other, cannot be expected to feel safe without a reasonable military protection; and he asks pertinently what defense could be made, "in case the enemy should tempt the Gentiles to attack us." That there was so little active hostility on the part of the savage tribes, that they looked so kindly as they did to the ways and restraints of the new life, is the strongest possible proof that the methods of the friars in dealing with them must have been both wise and humane.

During the first six years there was but one serious outbreak,—that at San Diego; no retaliation was shown toward the Indians for this: on the contrary, the orders of both friars and military commanders were that they should be treated with even greater kindness than before; and in less than two years the mission buildings were rebuilt, under a guard of only a half-score of soldiers with hundreds of Indians looking on, and many helping cheerfully in the work. The San Carlos Mission at Monterey was Father Junipero's own charge. There he spent all his time, when not called away by his duties as president of the missions. There he died, and there he was buried. There, also, his beloved friend and brother, Father Crespi, labored by his side for thirteen years. Crespi was a sanguine, joyous man, sometimes called El Beato, from his happy temperament. No doubt, his gayety made Serra's sunshine in many a dark day; and grief at his death did much to break down the splendid old man's courage and strength. Only a few months. before it occurred, they had gone together for a short visit to their comrade, Father Palon, at the San Francisco Mission. When they took leave of him, Crespi said, "Farewell forever; you will see me no more." This was late in the autumn of 1781, and on New Year's Day, 1782, he died, aged sixty years, and having spent half of those years in laboring for the Indians. Serra lived only two years longer, and is said never to have been afterward the same as before. For many years he had been a great sufferer from an affection of the heart-aggravated, if not induced, by his fierce beatings of his breast with a stone, while he was preaching. But physical pain seemed to make no impression on his mind. If it did not incapacitate him