The Famous Missions of California | Page 6

pious hope that they might all be named in Heaven) - after
all hardly forms part of our proper story. The father's real work was to
lie among the native Indians, and it is with his failures and successes in
this direction that the main interest of our California mission annals is
connected.
They were not an attractive people, these "gentiles" of a country which
to the newcomers must itself have seemed an outer garden of Paradise;
and Junipero's first attempts to gain their good will met with very slight
encouragement. During the ceremonies attendant upon the foundation
and dedication of the mission, they had stood round in silent wonder,
and now they showed themselves responsive to the strangers' advances
to the extent of receiving whatever presents were offered, provided the
gift was not in the form of anything to eat. The Spaniards' food they
would not even touch, apparently regarding it as the cause of the dire
sickness of the troops. And this, in the long run, remarks Palou, was

without doubt "singularly providential," owing to the rapid depletion of
the stores. Ignorance of the Indians' language, of course, added
seriously to the father's difficulties in approaching them, and presently
their thefts of cloth, for the possession of which they developed a
perfect passion, and other depredations, rendered them exceedingly
troublesome. Acts of violence became more and more common, and
by-and-bye, a determined and organized attack upon the mission, in
which the assailants many times outnumbered their opponents, led to a
pitched battle, and the death of one of the Spanish servants. This was
the crisis; for, happily, like a thunderstorm, the disturbance, which
seemed so threatening of future ill, cleared the air, at any rate for a time;
and the kindness with which the Spaniards treated their wounded foes
evidently touched the savage heart. Little by little a few Indians here
and there began to frequent the mission; and with the hearty welcome
accorded them their numbers soon increased. Among them there
happened to be a boy, of some fifteen years of age, who showed
himself more tractable than his fellows, and whom Father Junipero
determined to use as an instrument for his purpose. When the lad had
picked up a smattering of Spanish, the padre sent him to his people
with the promise that if he were allowed to bring back one of the
children, the youngster should not only by baptism be made a Christian,
but should also (and here the good father descended to a bribe) be
tricked out like the Spaniards themselves, in handsome clothes. A few
days later, a "gentile," followed by a large crowd, appeared with a child
in his arms, and the padre, filled with unutterable joy, at once threw a
piece of cloth over it, and called upon one of the soldiers to stand
godfather to this first infant of Christ. But, alas! just as he was
preparing to sprinkle the holy water, the natives snatched the child from
him, and made off with it (and the cloth) to their own ranchería. The
soldiers who stood round as witnesses were furious at this insult, and,
left to themselves, would have inflicted summary punishment upon the
offenders. But the good father pacified them, attributing his failure - of
which he was wont to speak tearfully to the end of his life - to his own
sins and unworthiness. However, this first experience in
convert-making was fortunately not prophetic, for though it is true that
many months elapsed before a single neophyte was gained for the
mission, and though more serious troubles were still to come, in the

course of the next few years a number of the aborigines, both children
and adults, were baptized.

[2] The mission was transferred in 1874 from the location selected by
Junipero to a site some two miles distant, up the river.

IV.

While Junipero and his companions were thus engaged in planting the
faith among the Indians of San Diego, Portolà's expedition was meeting
with unexpected trials and disappointments. The harbour of Monterey
had been discovered and described by Viscaino at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, and it seemed no very difficult matter to reach it
by way of the coast. But either the charts misled them, or their own
calculations erred, or the appearance of the landscape was strangely
deceptive - at any rate, for whatever reason or combination of reasons,
the exploring party passed the harbour without recognizing it, though
actually lingering awhile on the sand hills overlooking the bay. Half
persuaded in their bewilderment that some great catastrophe must,
since Viscaino's observations, have obliterated the port altogether, they
pressed northward another forty leagues, and little dreaming of the
importance attaching to their wanderings, crossed the Coast range, and
looked down