a band of Indians filled him with as much delight as at this day a man feels at the prospect of making a fortune. He regarded them as so many souls that he was to save; and the baptism of an Indian baby filled him with transport. With what sort of a spirit he worked for these creatures you see pleasantly exhibited in the foundation of the mission of San Antonio de Padua, some twenty or thirty leagues below Monterey. With an escort, a couple of priests, and a pack train carrying all the necessary articles for a new church, he goes off into the mountains, examines all the hollows, and selects a beautiful little plain, through which flowed a small river. Here he orders the mules to be unpacked, and the bells to be hung upon a tree, and as soon as that is done he seizes the rope and begins to ring, crying out at the same time at the top of his voice, “Hear! hear! oh ye gentiles! Come to the holy church! Come to the faith of Jesus Christ!" Father Péyras, who was with him, remonstrates, "What do you stop for? Is not this the place for the church, and are there no gentiles in the neighborhood?" "Let me alone," says Father Junipero; "Let me unburthen my heart, which could wish this bell should be heard by all the world, or at least by all the gentiles in these mountains”—and so he rang away there in the wilderness.

The missions of San Francisco and Santa Clara were not founded for several years after the occupation of Monterey. The wants of the new missions of his jurisdiction induced the Reverend Father President Junipero to take a journey to Mexico to see the Viceroy in person, and although he succeeded to his satisfaction in other things, it was only after much entreaty that he obtained a promise that these two missions should be established after communication was opened by land. This was done by Captain Juan Bautista Anza, in 1773, whilst Father Junipero was absent on his visit to Mexico. [NOTE.-A granddaughter of Captain Juan Bautista Anza is now living in this city. She is the wife of Don Manuel Ainsa, and the mother of a large family of greatgrandchildren of the first pioneer who came to Upper California, direct from Mexico by land.] He made his report to the Viceroy in 1774, and came back again with a considerable number of soldiers and families in 1776. In the mean time, in anticipation of his arrival, the San Carlos was sent up to examine the port of San Francisco, and ascertain whether it could be really entered by a channel or mouth which had been seen from the land. This great problem was satisfactorily solved by the San Carlos, a ship of perhaps some two hundred tons burden at the very utmost, in the month of June, 1775. When she entered they reported that they found a land-locked sea, with two arms, one making into the interior about fifteen leagues to the southeast, another three, four, or may be five leagues to the north, where there was a large bay, about ten leagues across and of a round figure, into which emptied the great river of our father, St. Francis, which was fed by five other rivers, all of them copious streams, flowing through a plain so wide that it was bounded only by the horizon, and meeting to form the said great river; and all this immensity of water discharging itself through the said channel or mouth into the Pacific ocean, which is there called the Gulf of the Farallones. This very striking description was accurate enough for the purposes of that day; and as soon as Anza and his people had arrived, and Anza in person had gone up and selected the sites, a party was sent by land and another by sea to establish the presidio and mission of San Francisco. The date of the foundation of the presidio is the 17th of September, and of the mission the 9th of October, 1776. The historian mentions in connection with these proceedings some things which may claim a moment's attention. In the Valley of San José, the party coming up by land saw some animals which they took for cattle, though they could not imagine where they came from; and, supposing they were wild and would scatter the tame ones they were dri ing, the soldiers made after them and succeeded in killing three, which were so large that a mule could with difficulty carry one,

being of the size of an ox, and with horns like those of a deer, but so long that their tips were eight feet apart. This was their first view of the elk. The soldiers made the observation that they could not run against the wind by reason of these monstrous antlers. And after the presidio, and before the mission was established, an exploration of the interior was organized, as usual, by sea and land. Point San Pablo was given as the rendezvous; but the captain of the presidio, who undertook in person to lead the land party, failed to appear there, having, with the design to shorten the distance, entered a cañada somewhere near the head of the bay, which took him over to the San Joaquin river; so he discovered that stream.

Then there are some traits of the first inhabitants of this place, the primitive San Franciscans. They lived upon muscles and acorns, blackberries, strawberries, and fish, and delighted above all things in the blubber of whales, when one was stranded on the coast. They wore no clothes at all, at least the men, and the women very little; but they were not ashamed. They found it cold all the year round, as did the fathers who first took charge of the mission, and to protect themselves, were in the habit of plastering their bodies with mud. They said it kept them warm. Their marriages were very informal, the ceremony consisting in the consent alone of the parties; and their law of divorce was equally simple, for they separated as soon as they quarrelled, and joined themselves to another, the children usually following the mother. They had no other expression to signify that the marriage was dissolved than to say, "I have thrown her away," or "I have thrown him away." And in some of their customs they seemed to have been Mormons. In their marriages affinity was not regarded as an objection, but rather an inducement. They preferred to marry their sisters-in-law, and even their mothers-in-law; and the rule was, if a man married a woman, he also married all her sisters, having many wives who lived together, without jealousy, in the same house, and treated each other's children with the same love as their own. Father Junipero's death closes the first period of our history. It is a period marked by exploits. They are those of humble and devoted, yet heroic missionaries. The story is diversified with only such simple incidents as that, in the summer of 1772, the commander, Pedro Fages, had to go out and kill bears for provisions to subsist on, which formidable game he found in abundance somewhere near San Luis Obispo, in a cañada that still justly bears the name of Cañada de los Osos: and that in 1780 the frost killed the growing grain at Easter. And only one instance of bloodshed attended the happy course of the spiritual conquest. The vicious Indians of San Diego, on a second attempt, murdered one of the fathers and two or three other persons, and burned the mission, which some little time afterwards was re-established. We are told that they were prompted to this deed by the enemy of souls, who was very much incensed at finding his party falling into a minority by reason of the constant conversions of the heathen in that neighborhood. All the seeds that Galvez was so provident in sending up took root and prospered beyond the most sanguine expectations which he could have entertained when he predicted that the soil would prove as fertile as that of old Spain; and the cattle increased and multiplied with an increase without a parallel, so that in short time his purpose, that there should be no lack of something to eat in this country, was fully accomplished.

Our historian is the friar, Father Francisco Palou, one of the followers of Father Junipero, whose life, like a devout disciple, he wrote here at the mission of San Francisco. He was the first priest who had charge of this mission, and his book was written here in 1785. It was printed in the city of Mexico in 1787. It is the first, undoubtedly, but not the worst book written in California. Copies of the original edition may be found in some private libraries of this city, bound in sheepskin, clasped with loops and buttons of the same, and with a long list of errata at the end. This volume is of itself an object of interest.

To the work there is a preface which bespeaks the indulgence of the reader, because it was written among "barbarous gentiles, in the port of San Francisco, in his new mission, the most northern of New California, without books or men of learning to consult." There are also the reports of several censors, and both a civil and ecclesiastical license to print it, and likewise a protest, of which the writer is entitled to the benefit at this day. He declares, in obedience to the Church, the Inquisition, and the Pope, that he intends and desires that no more faith should be given to his performance than to a mere human history, and that the epithets he gives Father Junipero, and the title of martyrs which he bestowed on some of the other missionaries, are to be understood as mere human honors, and such as are permitted by a prudent discretion and a devout faith. The narrative is clear and circumstantial, well supported by public and private writings, and obviously true. The miraculous is always introduced as hearsay, and, whilst it does not impeach the veracity of the writer, serves still further to illustrate the times by showing us the simple credulity of the class to which he belonged-the founders and first settlers of California. With the book there is a map. It exhibits the coast of Upper California from San Diego to San Francisco. The only objects visible on it are nine missions and a dotted line, to show the road that the fathers travelled from one to the other, viz: San Diego, San Juan Capistrano, San Gabriel, San Buenaventura, San Luis, (Obispo,) San Antonio, San Carlos de Monterey, Santa Clara, San Francisco, and three presidios, Monterey, Santa Barbara, and San Diego, all lying near the coast, and back all a blank. Looking upon this old map, we realize that California was designed for the Indians. They were to be its people after they were converted and instructed as others had been in Mexico. The missions were to be the towns. The presidios were to protect the missions within, and defend the country from enemies without. Only enough settlers were to be introduced to relieve the government from some part of the burden of supplying the presidios with recruits and provisions from Mexico. For this purpose, pueblos San José de Guadalupe and Los Angeles, one in the north and the other in the south, were established, both in the time of Father Junipero Serra. A small tract of land was given to these villages for their use collectively, and smaller parcels to each inhabitant as his private property. Neither of these pueblos appear on this old map, of such little consequence were they regarded. Father Palou, in relating the rejoicings at Mexico in consequence of the discovery of Monterey, says: The said extent of three hundred leagues in length”an accurate measurement of the new dominions of the king in Upper California-"is of fertile lands, peopled with an immensity of gentiles, from whose docile and peaceable dispositions it was hoped they would be immediately converted to our holy faith, and gathered in Catholic pueblos, (villages,) that thus living in subjection to the royal crown they might secure the coasts of this Southern or Pacific ocean.” The first grant of land made in California was a tract of one hundred and forty varas square, at the mission of San Carlos, November 27, 1775, to one Manuel Butron, a soldier, in consideration that he had married Margarita, a daughter of that mission. Father Junipero recommends this family, to wit, the soldier and the native Indian woman, to the government, and all the other ministers of the king, "as being the first in all these establishments which have chosen to become permanent settlers of the same." The Indian appears in everything.

In tranquillity this California of the Indians remained for more than fifty years. The fathers built new missions, and continually replenished their stock of converts, which at one time amounted to at least twenty thousand. They planted vineyards, orchards, and the olive. They taught the Indians, to some extent, agriculture and the mechanic arts. They made flour, and wine, and cloth, and soap, and leather, adobes and tiles, and with their villages of disciples about them, lived at ease as well as in peace. There was but one obstacle in

their way. A great law of nature rose up to oppose them. The Indian of California was not equal to those of Mexico. He was but a brute. The time never came when he could be enfranchised and trusted to himself, and converted into a Spanish subject as so many races had been further south. The fathers must continue to hold their converts in subjection, or they would return to the heathen state, or even worse would befall them. If the world could have afforded to devote a paradise to such a purpose, and for the Indian, certainly it would have been well if the missions could have lasted forever. I will endeavor to present some of the features and some of the events of this Indian period, as briefly as possible. And here, for whatever of interest I may be able to awaken in the subject, I shall be indebted to Mr. R. C. Hopkins, the accomplished and learned gentleman who has charge of the Spanish archives in the surveyor general's office.

An American audience will of course desire to know something of the form of the political government. Constitution or charter there was none. The government was purely military, outside of the missions. All functions, civil and military, judicial and economical, were united in the person of the commandante of a presidio, in due subjection to his superior, and so on up to the king, an autocrat, whose person was represented and whose will was executed in every part of his dominions. In the archives is to be found a reglamento, which, as the name imports, is a set of regulations for the peninsula of the Californias, Lower and Upper. Its caption expresses that it is for the government of the presidios, the promotion of the erection of new missions, and of the population and extension of the establishments of Monterey. It was drafted at Monterey by the governor, in 1779, sent to Madrid, and approved by the king in 1781. When examined, it is found to adopt the royal reglamento for the government of all the presidios, with such small variations as the circumstances of California required. There are minute provisions for paying, clothing, and feeding the officers and troops, and for supporting the families of the troops, and other persons dependent on the presidios. The number of pack mules to be kept at the presidios, and how the horses are to be pastured, and that four are always to be kept in the presidio ready saddled by day, and eight by night, is prescribed. Another pueblo was to be founded, as was done, namely, Los Angeles. The pueblo of San José had already been founded, two years before. The intent of these pueblos is declared to be to fulfil the pious designs of the King for converting the gentiles, and to secure his dominions. At that date, says the reglamento, the country was filled, from San Diego to Monterey, with an immense number of gentiles, and only one thousand seven hundred and forty-nine Christians, of both sexes, in the eight missions, strung along through all that distance. The manner in which pueblos are to be founded is given; each settler to have his building lot and sowing field of two hundred varas square, that being supposed to be enough to sow two bushels of grain; and the whole together to have commons for wood, water, and pasturage; also a certain number of horses, mules, oxen, cows, sheep, chickens, ploughs, hoes, axes, &c., are to be furnished to each; and the amount of pay-for a settler had his salary for a little while as well as his outfit-his exemptions, and his obligations, are all minutely detailed. Of the first we observe, that for the first five years he is to be free from the payment of tithes ; of the latter, that all the excess of his productions beyond his support he must sell at a fixed price to the presidios, and that he must keep a horse and saddle, carbine and lance, and hold himself in readiness for the service of the king. Also, we note that the building lot is a homestead, and cannot be alienated or mortgaged, and descends to the son or (in default of a son, I suppose) to the daughter, provided she is married to a settler who is without a lot of his own; and that after the first five years are past, each settler and his descendants must, in recognition of the absolute property of the King, pay a rent of one-half

fanega of corn for his sowing lot. The only trace of a political right that we find in the reglamento is the allowance to the pueblos of alcaldes, and other municipal officers, to be appointed by the governor for the first two years, and afterwards to be elected by the inhabitants. These officers were to see to the good government and police of the pueblos and the administration of justice, to direct the public works, apportion to each man his share of the water for irrigation, and generally to enforce the provisions of the reglamento. This, perhaps, was as much as they ought to have had, for we see in the proceedings on the foundation of San José, that neither the alcalde nor any one of the eight other settlers could sign his name. As a check upon the abuse of their privileges the elections were subject to the approval of the governor, who had also the power to continue to appoint the officers for three years longer, if he found it necessary. At first California formed a part of the kingdom of New Spain, and was governed directly by the Viceroy of Mexico. In 1776 it was attached to the commandancia general of the internal provinces, which included also Soñora, New Mexico, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Texas. Afterwards it was a part of the commandancia general of the internal provinces of the west, when Coahuila and Texas, New Leon and the Colony of New Santander had been erected into another jurisdiction, under the title of the internal provinces of the east. The commandante general seems to have had no fixed residence, but to have gone from place to place, wherever his presence might be wanted, and so his orders are sometimes dated from Arispe and sometimes from Chihuahua, both of which now obscure places may be said in their time to have been the capital of California. The Apache and Comanche Indian has watered his horse in their plazas since then. This arrangement did not last many years, and California reverted to the Viceroy again. Laws came from the King, in his council of the Indies, at Madrid, as orders are issued by the commander-in-chief of an army; to the second in command, to wit, the Viceroy at Mexico, from him to his next in rank, we will say the commandante general at Arispe or Chihuahua, from him to the governor of California at Monterey, and from him to the captain or lieutenant in command of a presidio. They took effect only as they were published, spreading as the courier advanced, and from place to place in succession, like a wave, from centre to circumference. They came slowly, but in time every order of a general nature would find its way into the archives of every province, presidio, or pueblo in North and South America, and of every island of the ocean which owned the dominion of the King of Spain. The archives of this State contain a great many, and their counterparts are to be looked for in every public office, from Havana to Manilla, and from Chihuahua to Valparaiso. When wars, or the accidents of navigation, or the urgency of the case, interrupted or rendered impossible communication with Madrid, each viceregent of the King in his department exercised the royal authority. Therefore, in the nature of things, the powers of every governor in his province were practically despotic. And not only the laws, but every other expression of the wishes of the King were transmitted in the same way, travelled through the same circuitous channels, and were received, and published, and executed with the same dignity and formality. Here is an example from the archives :

The King heard that the neighborhood of the presidio of San Francisco abounded with deer of a very superior quality, and desiring to have some for his park, issued an order to the viceroy of Mexico, who in his turn ordered the commandante general of the internal provinces of the west, who despatched an order to the governor of the province of California, who ordered the captain of the presidio of San Francisco, who finally ordered a soldier to go out and catch the deer, two years after the order was given by the King at Madrid. Allowing a reasonable time for the hunt, and for sending the animals to Spain, it will be seen that the King had to wait some time for the gratification of his royal wishes.