no time? It is your chief business. Better omit all other things than this. But all other things will be the better done for doing this. No time to sow in spring! No time to reap in harvest! Then will the harvest soon be past, and the summer ended, and your household not be saved. J. W. Y.

Bistorical and Biographical.

A SKETCH OF THE EARLY ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONS IN CALIFORNIA.

THE great interest which has been felt in California since its connection with the United States, and the prospective bearings which it seems destined to have upon the commercial prosperity of the Union not only, but also upon the future character of the Eastern shores of Asia, invest everything that relates to its past history, no less than to its present condition, with attractiveness and importance. That history would be incomplete without some notice of the early Roman Catholic Missions planted upon the shores of the Pacific.

Although Sir Francis Drake took possession of part of the coast as high as 37° (or, according to Bancroft, 43°), and called it New Albion, in 1579, the credit of prior discovery is due to Cortez. He discovered the peninsula and navigated the gulf in 1536, and conceived the most magnificent anticipations from its pearl fisheries, and its fertile soil. But being compelled to return to Mexico, to quell some commotions which had broken out there, he unwillingly laid aside his project of settling California, and for near half a century nothing further appears to have been done. In January, 1683, an expedition was fitted out by Marquis de la Laguna, Viceroy of Mexico, and landed in March on the southeast coast, giving to the port the name of Our Lady of Peace, and building a fort there. The expedition was accompanied by two Jesuit Fathers, Matthias Gogni, and Eusebius Francis Kino, the last of whom was a German. His name has been by some spelled Caino. But the settlement did not prove fortunate, and the two missionaries were obliged, after a while, to abandon California, and retire into the provinces of Cinaloa and Sonora, where the missions were more promising.

This account is taken from the celebrated Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, condensed and translated by Mr. Lockman, under the title of Travels of the Jesuits. On account of the rarity of this work, and the scantiness of materials elsewhere, it is intended to draw largely from its pages; and when its narratives cease, from other sources. The total account given in Newcomb's recent Cyclopedia of Missions is comprised in one brief and very unsatisfactory sentence, viz.: "The Upper California missions were conducted by Franciscans, and till a recent period were in a very flourishing state, but are now destroyed." (p. 303.)

The earliest information we have been able to obtain is derived from a letter of Father Le Gobien to the Jesuits of France, written somewhere about or before the year 1705. He was the first who corrected the common error of California being an island, instead of a peninsula. Yet strange to say, notwithstanding this discovery, Noblot, in his Universal Geography, published in 1725, represented it as an island.*

Le Gobien tells us, that after the departure of the first two missionaries (whether owing to the hostilities of the natives, or other causes, he does not state), nothing more was done for about a dozen years. Then Father John Maria de Salvatierra, a Milanese Jesuit labouring in the Province of Taromara, or New Biscay, felt his heart stirred up within him to make another attempt to establish a Christian colony in California. In this design he obtained the approbation and concurrence of the Count de Monteguma, successor of Laguna in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Labouring indefatigably, he inspired others with his own enthusiasm, and succeeded in procuring money, ships, and missionaries. But just as the whole affair was on the point of consummation, the Indians of Taromara broke out in insurrection, taking up arms to extirpate the Spaniards and converts. Father Kino, and many other persons who had agreed to go with the new colony, were compelled to give up the expedition, as they could not leave in so critical a conjuncture. Salvatierra was therefore obliged to go by himself, and landed at Concho, Oct. 18, 1697.

Although the Indians at first appeared friendly, it was discovered that they only dissimulated, in order the better to surprise and cut to pieces the Spaniards, which they would have done, had not their treachery been detected in season to forestall and punish it. Father Picolo, who soon after joined Salvatierra, and who presented an account of the Mission to the Royal Council at Guadalaxara in 1702, gives the following explanation of the attack of the natives. He writes, "Being all happily arrived, we placed the image of our Lady (after adorning it in the best manner possible), in the place which we thought most suitable and worthy of the Saint; and besought her to be as favourable and indulgent to us on land as she had been at sea. As the natives had not an opportunity of knowing the design we were come upon, viz., of bringing them to the light of the Gospel, they not understanding our language, and none of our company having the least knowledge of theirs, this made them imagine that our only motive was to dispossess them of their pearl-fishery, as others had attempted more than once before. For this reason they had recourse to arms, and accordingly came in different bodies to our settlement, in which there then were but a very few Spaniards. On which occasion they attacked us with so much fury, and poured in such showers of darts and stones, that we must inevitably have been lost, had it not been for the protection of the Blessed Virgin." (Trav. of the Jes. i. 396.) The barbarians becoming more tractable after their defeat, and being undeceived as to the intentions of their visitors, now flocked to them in great numbers, and seemed overjoyed, the Father states, to be instructed in the Christian faith and the way to heaven.

The two missionaries, Salvatierra and Picolo, were soon joined by

* It was so delineated on Moll's maps, and also on a map of the World by Edward Wells (in the writer's possession), published about the middle of the last century. Even à Dublin edition of Salmon's Gazetteer, printed in 1746, says, "it is either an island or a peninsula, most probably the latter."

Father Kino, who found his way thither by land; during which journey, he made the discovery that California was not an island. He laid down and transmitted to Spain a map of the country, being well skilled "in mathematics." (Trav. Jes. i. 356.)

The Jesuit fathers spent two years and upwards in learning the languages of the country, which they found to be two, the Monqui and the Laymone, in which they began to preach as soon as they were able. They divided the whole country into four Missions: Concho, or Our Lady of Loretto; Biaundo, or St. Francis Xavier; Yodivinegga, or Our Lady of Grief; and St. John de Lordo, which was not so well established or promising as the three others. (Trav. Jes. i. 398.) "Each mission," says Picolo, "consists of several villages. A chapel had been built for the second mission; but being found too small, we have begun to raise a lofty church, with brick walls, and design to cover it in with timber. The garden, which joins to the house of the missionaries, produces herbs and pulse of every kind already; and the Mexican trees planted there thrive well, and will soon be loaded with excellent fruits." (Ib.)

In accomplishing their task, the Jesuit Padres are said to have exhibited an heroic endurance and adventurous spirit not inferior to those of Cortez himself. Of their methods and labours, different opinions may be entertained, but none can deny them the credit of inextinguishable zeal, or of having raised the condition of the miserable tribes of natives, whom they induced to leave their wandering life, and live in houses. Previous to their arrival, the natives had been in the lowest state of degradation, little better than "the beasts that perish." The men, Father Picolo tells us, went entirely in a state of nudity, with the exception of a kind of network about their heads, and ornaments of mother-of-pearl and beads made of the stones or kernels of fruits, round their necks, and sometimes on their hands. Their only weapons were bows and arrows or javelins, which they perpetually carried, the several villages being frequently in a state of war. The women wore aprons like mats, plaited of reeds very artfully, from the waist to the knee, skins of beasts on their shoulders, a curious network on their heads, and necklaces and bracelets, composed of mother-of-pearl, kernels, and sea-shells, in great profusion. (Trav. Jes. i. 403.)

Given to indolence, the natives passed whole days stretched out at full length on their faces in the sand, nor were they roused to any effort, till driven to the chase or the digging of roots by the gnawings of hunger, and when those gnawings were appeased, they relapsed again into their former apathy and laziness.

The only sense of religion which they possessed was a terror of some great and unknown Being, of whose power, as scen in the occurrences of nature, they stood in dread. (Malte-Brun, iii. 291.) Father Picolo says, that though at first their jocular propensities led them to laugh and jeer at the mistakes of the foreigners in speaking their language, they afterwards exhibited much greater civility. "Whenever we explain some mystery or article in morality, which interferes with their prejudices or ancient errors, they wait till the preacher has ended his discourse, and then will dispute with him, in a forcible and sensible manner. If cogent reasons are offered, they listen to them with great docility; and when convinced, they submit, and perform whatever is enjoined them. They did not seem to have any form of government, nor scarce anything like

religion, or a regular worship. They adore the moon, and cut their hair (to the best of my remembrance) when that planet is in the wane, in honour of their deity. The hair which is thus cut off they give to their priests, who employ it in several superstitious uses." (Trav. Jes. i. p. 405.)

The religion of the tribes in the interior differed from that of those on the sea-coast. Even when the same names were retained, the traditions greatly varied. This we learn from Father Geronimo Boscana, a Franciscan friar of San Juan Capistrano, who enjoyed peculiar facilities for acquiring information. He died in 1831, leaving among his papers an elaborate treatise on the subject, which the curious may find appended to Mr. Alfred Robinson's book, entitled "Life in California."

According to Boscana, the natives believed in an Almighty Being by the name of Chinigchinich, and also in a devil, who took the form of some animal. They believed in the creation of the first man out of clay, and in a general deluge. Their worship consisted in violent dances, of which they were extravagantly fond, on which occasions they wore dresses and crowns of feathers, and painted their bodies black and red. They were abject slaves of superstition, and completely in the power of their sorcerers, who made them submit to the most cruel ordeals and selfdenials. Their year commenced on the 21st of December, when the sun arrived at the tropic of Capricorn. Their months were lunar. They held to a future state, which was a sort of earthly paradise, with dancing and festivity, plenty to eat and nothing to do. (Life in Cal. App. pp. 237-336.)

The writer of the article on California in Rees's Cyclopædia, states that the Jesuits succeeded in reducing the Indians to as complete subjection as they did the natives of Paraguay, and that they introduced into their missions the same policy and regulations; and he adds, that in order to prevent the Court of Spain from entertaining any jealousy of their plans, they depreciated the country as insalubrious and barren in the extreme, so that it might be thought no conceivable motive but that of converting the natives could lead any man to settle there.

This statement is hardly borne out by the communication of Father Picolo, already cited, as made to the Royal Council at Guadalaxara; for in that account he gives a glowing description of the fertility of the soil, its fourteen kinds of grain, its fruits, figs, pistachios, beans, and melons of a prodigious size. The soil, he represented to be so vastly rich, as that many plants produced fruit thrice a year; and were the proper labour and instruments employed, he had no doubt of the greatest plenty both of fruits and grain being the result. He also gave it as his opinion, that the rock salt, found in pits, and the pearl-fishery, might be made to yield vast sums; and added this significant sentence, which falls upon our ears with double weight, since the recent developments of that auriferous region: "I don't doubt but mines would be discovered in several places, if sought for, since part of the country is in the same latitude with the provinces of Cinaloa and Sonora, where there are very rich ones." (Trav. Jes. i. 402.) It would be entertaining to quote from these Fathers their accounts at large of the fauna and flora of the country, as well as their speculations on the probability of its having been peopled by Tartars crossing over by Behring's Straits. But as these subjects are foreign to the matter in hand, we content ourselves with this passing allusion.

For their better security the Spaniards built a fort in the district of St.

Denis, or Concho. It had four bastions, and was surrounded by a deep ditch. An area was laid out for the soldiers to exercise in, and barracks for their lodging. There were eighteen soldiers with their officers, two of whom had wives and children. This garrison was but small, and had been reduced by inability to support more. Father Picolo was desirous of further reinforcements, and of greater rewards bestowed on the troops as an incentive to bravery; so that although he speaks of their having maintained peace and tranquillity, he evidently felt no assurance of being secure against disturbance, without the aid of the arm of flesh.

Here we must take our leave of the entertaining narratives of the Jesuit Padres; for in 1767, they fell under the displeasure of the Spanish king, Charles III., and by his order were banished from every part of his dominions, America included. The venerable priests attempted no resistance, and by their meek behaviour and snow-white hair, blanched by half a century's labours, softened the heart of the royal governor, who had expected to find a large native army drawn up to oppose him. The missionaries appeared to be much beloved by their converts, who accompanied them to the place of embarkation with sobs and tears.

The Jesuits were succeeded by the Franciscans, and the Franciscans afterwards by the Dominicans; but the distinction is not necessary to be retained in this sketch, and they will be spoken of only under the common title of Missionaries.

Two years after the expulsion of the Jesuits, Padre Junipero Serra, a Franciscan, in 1769, founded the mission of San Diego, in Alta California. This was the commencement of the attempts to Christianize New or Upper California. It soon extended along the coast as far as San Francisco. Father Serra was indefatigable in his efforts, and established nine missions before his death, in 1784. Afterwards ten more were added, making in all nineteen. Mr. Robinson computed the total number to have been twenty-one, the last being founded in 1823. (Life in California, pp. vii. & 3.) His information he professes to have derived, in regard to the early missions, from a work of Padre Vanegas.

The names and locations of the Missions are given by Bayard Taylor as follows:

San Rafael, and San Francisco Solano, north of San Francisco Bay; Dolores, near San Francisco; Santa Clara, founded in 1777, and San José, near Puebla San José, founded in 1797; San Juan Bautista, founded in 1797; Santa Cruz, and Carmel, near Monterey; Soledad, founded in 1791; San Antonio, founded in 1771, and San Miguel, founded in 1797, in the valley of Salinas River; San Luis Obispo; La Purissima, founded in 1787; Santa Ynez, founded in 1797; Santa Barbara, and San Buenaventura, near Santa Barbara, founded in 1782; San Gabriel, founded in 1771; San Fernando, founded in 1797, near Los Angeles; San Luis Rey, founded in 1798; San Juan Capistrano, founded in 1776; and San Diego, on the coast, south of Los Angeles, founded in 1769. "These Missions," says Mr. Robinson, "were the germs of Spanish colonization." (Life in Cal. Introd. p. 7.)

In achieving the spiritual conquest of the upper province, the government lent all the aid in its power, being stimulated by a jealousy of English, French, and Russian enterprise, and the desire to secure a firm foothold in a region whose position and wealth invested it with great value. But the narrow policy and commercial restrictions of the Spanish govern