Since 1850 this grant of land has always been administered under the charge of Father Alemany at San Francisco for the benefit of all the districts included under the charge of the ancient missionaries of both Lower California and the State of California, but the profits and usufructs of the grant have so far amounted to nothing, as the great drought of 1863-'64 nearly swept off all their large stock of sheep, horses, and cattle. When any profits do issue, the ecclesiastical body of Lower California will receive its due proportion. In consêquence of this curious mixture of church and worldly matters, the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical chiefs represented to the Pope at Rome how the matter stood, and desired a division of the property, but Pius IX. referred them to the Congress of the United States as the proper body to cause a legal partition of the grant. or its usufructs. This representation was made to Congress in 1864, but up to 1867 no effectual changes have been made in the status of the College Ranch grant. y THE DESTROYED MISSIONS OF THE COLORADO IN 1782. In the fall of 1782 the Yuma Indians destroyed the two missions on the west bank of the Colorado, opposite the junction of the Gila, which had been founded a short time before by order of the Viceroy Buccarelli, and not far from where Fort Yuma now stands. These missions were nine miles apart; the upper one was called La Purísima Concepcion, and the lower one San Pedro San Pablo, and they were under the charge of four missionaries of the Franciscan College of Santa Cruz of Querétaro City, which college had charge of all the old Jesuit missions of Sonora. The Indians surprised the people one Sunday when at mass, by congregating in hundreds, and murdered the two missionaries of Concepcion, named Padres Juan Dias, a native of Estremadura, and Matias Moreno, of Burgos, and the other two of San Pedro y San Pablo, named Juan Barreneche, a native of Santa Helena in Florida, and Francisco Garces of Arragon; this last was a well-known missionary traveller among the Indian nations of the Gila, the Colorado, and the Mohave, and had visited the Moquis and several other tribes in New Mexico. With these priests were also murdered Captain Fernando Rivera Moncada (who had long served in Upper and Lower California, and in Sonora) and some 30 soldiers, and as many Sonorians, male and female, who had settled there as colonists by order of the viceroy to keep open the overland communication between Upper California and Sonora. The next year Colonel Pedro Fages was sent from California to examine into the matter and punish the Indians, but they could not be caught. He found the bones of the murdered people scattered around, bleaching in the sun, and had them gathered up and buried with becoming decency. The bodies of the missionaries were placed in boxes and carried by Fages to the president of the Sonora missions to be buried, after which Fages passed to Arispe to report the results to the comandante-general, De Croix. Padre Kino had also founded a small out-mission, not far from the junction, but on the Gila bottom, about 1704, which he called San Dionisio, but this had been deserted since 1720. THE CHINESE AS LABORERS IN LOWER CALIFORNIA. Whatever may be done in future under the different political aspects which may obtain in the California peninsula, no great amount of agricultural, marine, or mineral products can be accumulated without a sure and sufficient supply of tropical laborers at reasonable rates. The only people who can fill this necessary vacancy for long years are the Chinese, who have proved sufficiently docile in railroad and manufacturing operations in California State, or in Peru and the Sandwich Islands as cultivators of sugar and other products. With proper treatment and good laws, under the management of capitalists, the copper, sil ver, and lead mines, the overflowing fisheries, the cultivation of the vine, olive, almond, date-palm, maguey, cocoa-palm, nuts, figs, and currants, and of sugar, cotton, coffee, chocolate, or cocoa, tea, and hundreds of other tropical and intertropical productions could be carried on with great profits and in a very healthy and desirable climate, and in the vicinity of good shipping ports, The Chinese are not strangers on the Mexican coasts, having resided in Acapulco, San Blas, and other places, for years before 1800, having come in the old galleons from Manilla as merchants, servants, or sailors, and many of their descendants exist to this day in Western Mexico. There are no tropical laborers either as good, or as cheap and docile, as the laboring classes of China, and after a while they would soon make permanent residence in the country. They are doubtless intended by Divine Providence to play a most important part in the development of the countries of Pacific North and South America: nothing can long obstruct their coming. CHAPTER XIII. THE RAILROAD LINES TO CONNECT SAN FRANCISCO WITH LOWER CALIFORNIA. THERE are now regularly organized railroad corporations to connect the bay of San Francisco with the countries of the Colorado and the gulf of California, which without a doubt will be completely effected before the year 1880, or only 13 years hence. These may be enumerated as follows, and all of them will join with the great railroad of the central route between Sacramento and Great Salt Lake, and so to the Mississippi, which will be completed by the 1st of January, 1870: 1. The southern railroad coast line from San José to Gilroy, and over through the Tulare Valley, and from thence by the way of Los Angeles and San Diego to the Colorado, generally called the Phelps Company. 2. The Sacramento and Arizona Railroad Company, from Sacramento via Stockton, Visalia, Fort Tejon, and to the junction of the Colorado and Gila. 3. Air-line railroad line from Matagorda Bay, in Texas, by the Mesilla Valley, the table-lands of Chihuahua, Arizona, and across the Colorado Valley and the coast mountains to San Diego Bay; called Pease and Wood's Line. 4. A line from Great Salt Lake, via the Pahranagat silver-mines, to the Colorado River at a navigable point. 5. The railroad company of General Angel Trias, which has a route surveyed from Matamoras and through Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Durango, and Sonora, to the port of Guaymas, with liberal grants of land, mining privileges, etc., from the Mexican Government. All these routes will be accompanied by telegraph lines. Railroad and telegraph lines will, of course, follow through the length and breadth of Lower California, and through all parts of Sonora, and down to Mazatlan, there being no insuperable difficulties in existence. The Overland Mail route, through from Texas and Arizona to San Diego, will likely also be soon reopened, and after that we shall speedily have regular mail lines between San Diego through to Cape San Lucas. So that, within a time much shorter than expected, daily mail communications may be instituted between San Francisco and the southern parts of the peninsula, and also from the Gila all through Sonora and Sinaloa to Mazatlan. The effects of the Panama Railroad, the railroads through Tehuantepec, Nicaragua, Honduras, Chiriqui, and Costa Rica, and the great ship-canal through the Isthmus of Darien, all of which will, doubtless, be effected by 1880, the passage by the canal of the Isthmus of Suez, the steam lines from California to China and from China to Europe, with the telegraph crossing from America to Asia, and thence through Russia to England, and so back to America, will, in the short space of twenty years, accumulate such overwhelming results in the North Pacific States as to involve, by the forces of an irresistible attraction, the peninsula of California in the grand circle of events in commerce and politics now rapidly hastening to a providential culmination. SCRAPS AND FRAGMENTS OF BAJA CALIFORNIA NOTABILIA. The Dominican missionaries state that the Indians of Comondu Loreto, Cadegomo, and Moleje are false, melancholy, and very filthy; those of San Fernando and Rosario are docile, pacific, and easily managed; those of San Domingo and San Vicente are unquiet, proud, and fickle; while those of Santo Tomas, San Pedro Martyr, Santa Catalina, and San Miguel, are quick-tempered, treacherous, warlike, and difficult to govern. The Indians of the missions to the south of San Ignacio were so infected with the syphilis, measles, small-pox, and other diseases imported by the Spaniards, which occasioned such ravages among them, that not one of them was left in several of the reductions before 1794, while in others those numThe small-pox is said to bering by thousands were diminished to hundreds. have been introduced about 1781 by a company of Sonorians. By the 1825, it is said, not a single pure Indian could be seen in the missions below Loreto. year In the year 1774 the King of Spain donated $1,000 to found the mission of La Rosario, in the circles and vicinities of which the padres found several thousand Indians. In 1781 the mission of San Vicente was attacked by 2,000 Yuma Indians This attack was soon afterward from the mountains, who did great injury. avenged, and the Indians severely punished, by Don Theodore de Croix, comandante of the Mexican frontier, who was subsequently Viceroy of Peru. Between 1789 and 1800 the infant missions of San Pedro Martyr and Santa Catalina were several times attacked by the Yumas, who greatly retarded their establishment and growth. These Indians finally effected the entire desertion and abandonment of the two missions before 1828, and at present they are seldom visited. An insurrection of the Indians of Santo Tomas occurred in 1803. Two American vessels anchored in San Quintin Bay to get salt; they had been fired into at San Diego by the fort. In January, 1795, Father Cayatano Pallos became superior of the missions of Lower California, and left the frontiers to reside at Loreto. He retired in 1797, and Father Vicente Belda was made superior in his stead. During these years much dispute was going on among the northern missions as to the ownership of the valley of San Rafael, between San Vicente and San Domingo. In 1802 Padre Rafael Arvina became superior of the missions, which, giving much discontent to the Dominican missionaries, nine of them the next year refused to obey his orders, and drew up a manifesto against him, and forwarded it to Governor Arrillaga. The superior, on learning this, requested the governor for an armed force to compel his friars to obedience. In 1804 Padre Arvina was deposed, and Padre Placido Sanz made superior in his stead. These quarrels among the Dominican friars proved very injurious to the missions and Indians, and caused much scandal in the two Californias, it being plain that the Dominicans were incompetent to manage the Indians as well as the Jesuits or Franciscans. In 1802 there were only 47 soldiers in the Presidio of Loreto. At San José del Cabo was another presidio, with a small number of soldiers. In May, 1803, Captain José Maria Ruiz reports to Governor Arrillaga the murder of Father Eduardo Surroca by the Indians of Santo Tomas, and in June he further reports that he had severely chastised them. In 1806 the Indians of San Francisco Borja revolted, and trouble. gave much In 1813 Father Ramon Lopez was made superior of the missions of Baja California. In 1826 Father Tomas Ahumada was superior of the missions, and resided at San José del Cabo. In 1828 the missions were becoming very poor, the friars were decreasing every year, and Father Domingo Luna was made only provisional vicar of the Lower California missions. In that year Padre Luna writes to Governor Echeandia, touching the legality of his missionaries taking the oath of allegiance to the Mexican Government, demanded of the missionaries by the government of the two Californias in 1827. All the Dominican and Franciscan friars in the two territories were then natives of Old Spain. From 1843 to 1846 Father Ignacio Ramirez de Arrellanes was superior of the peninsular missions. In October, 1848, he left, as a political refugee, with the American troops, and acted as parish curate of Monterey until 1854, when he returned to Mexico. In the years 1818-1819 the priests inform the governor they have received information that the Americans are fitting out expeditions in Texas and New Mexico to take the Californias. Great excitement about this time concerning the expected visit of Bouchard, the Buenos Ayres privateer, who afterward plundered Monterey and scared Santa Bárbara to death. In the fall of 1717 tremendous hurricanes and water-spouts visited the southern missions, and did much damage, lasting for three days. In 1784 great hurricanes again occurred, with whirlwinds of sand. In 1849-'50 similar phenomena visited the country and did much damage. In 1863-'64 the great drought was simultaneous in both Californias, and occasioned heavy losses in stock animals. In 1864 asphaltum deposits were said to have been found in the vicinities of Viscaino Bay. In 1863 one J. L. Hopkins, a printer from San Francisco, established the El Mexicano newspaper at the town of La Paz-the first of the kind, we believe. In 1858-59 Dr. John L. Veitch, of Washoe, visited the island of Cedros and vicinities on a scientific expedition, an account of which is given in the San Francisco Hesperian Magazine of 1860-61. During the time of the Spanish sway in the Californias, the government and public correspondence was brought from Mexico to Guaymas once a month, and passed over by boat to Loreto, from whence it was sent on horseback through the missions of the peninsula to San Diego, Monterey, and San Francisco. This was commenced about 1776, and ended about 1816, during the revolution. After 1835 it was sometimes sent by way of the Colorado, but dispatches came generally till 1846 by sailing-vessels from Mazatlan and other Mexican ports. The coral-fisheries of the island of Sardinia employed 290 small vessels and 1,900 sailors in 1866, and procured not less than $300,000 worth of this beautiful aid to the jeweller's art. It is principally used for children's toys and making cameos, breastpins, seals for watches and rings, and a variety of ornamental purposes. There is said to be an abundance of this substance in the waters of the gulf and Magdalena Bay. In 1863 a large number of pictures and church valuables were brought from Lower California to San Francisco and placed on exhibition in that city. Among these were said to be several originals of the great Spanish painters Velasquez and Murillo, and also original oil-portraits of Fathers Kino, Salvatierra, and Junípero Serra, these last three being from the church of Loreto. Some greedy speculators, with or without authority from the Mexican Government, had cleaned out the mission churches of the peninsula, even we believe as high up as San Vicente. What became of the portraits we are not aware, but it was looked upon by all right-minded persons as nothing but church robbery and sacrilege. The Pacific Pearl Company, of New York and Panamá, in January, 1867, undertook to fish for pearl oysters among the Pearl Islands of Panamá Bay. A submarine boat was arranged, capable of carrying ten or twelve men at one time, who can work under the water for many hours, and so constructed that it may be lowered or hoisted at a moment's notice: when the boat is lowered, it can be opened at the bottom by means of two trap-doors, which allows a space of ten feet square under each trap-door for working space over the pearl-beds. This enterprise is said to be effectual and prosperous. A recent number of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin gives the following summary of Lower California exports for the year 1857, which appears to be taken from official Mexican sources, and must be greatly under the true amount of exports: Values. Hides, 13,000 pieces.... Salt, 2,000 tons.... Cheese, 100,000 pounds.. Brown sugar, or panoche, 29,000 lbs.. 11,000 Silver metal, 2,000 marks.. Dried figs, 32,500 pounds.. Raisins, 28,500 pounds.. Soap, 2,610 pounds.. Wine, 54 barrels.. Dried dates, 20,000 pounds. Values. 8,000 Silver ores, 250 tons, cost price... 5,600 16,000 1,300 Gold, 80 ounces.. 1,120 Amounting in all to about $155,000 in value. This makes no note of such valuable material as whale-oil, seal, sea-elephant and sea-lion oils, and that class of marine products, nor of pelts of fur seal, or of the sea otter, or the numbers of cattle, mules, and horses sold in Alta California, which must have made the true values of exports double. In 1866 the exports of mineral ores and many other articles had greatly augmented, and large amounts of whale and marine animal oil, with sea-otter pelts, were known, beyond cavil, to have been exported out of the country, and the shipments of Carmen Island salt were very considerable. It is no exaggerated estimate to put down the value of the exports of Lower California in the year 1866 at one million of dollars; and it is just as likely, from the present high prices of oil, it would run to two millions of dollars. THE GATES TO AN OVERFLOWING COMMERCE-IMMENSE MINERAL WEALTH OF THE COLORADO BASIN AND THE COUNTRIES OF THE GULF OF CALIFORNIASUBLIME SCENERY OF THE GULF LINES-WONDERFUL AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES OF THIS REGION-AREA AND POPULATION. As we approach from the south and west, open the portals of the most wonderful metalliferous district that is known in the world. To the right lie the green and fertile shores of Sinaloa, and on the left the rugged mountains and castellated turrets of the California peninsula. As we sail farther on, black, serrated islands, like giant guardians of these seas, cleave the transparent ether, and quickly we get glimpses of both shores of the gulf of Cortez. Now commence, in the quiet and tranquil daylights and twilights of the seasons of winter and spring, the most sublime, awful, and enchantingly magical changes and vistas which earth opens to the vision of mortal men. For hundreds of miles peak after peak, and rock after rock, and island after island, rise sharp and straight out of the depths of the sea, projected against a vault of the purest, densest azure, and the pinnacles and summits of earth's upheavals and terrible convulsions seem to touch the very firmament of heaven. Here on the shores of Pimaria lie the desert stretches and clear-cut, solitary mountain masses, fading out dimly to the east till absorbed into the great Cordillera of Mexico; while to the west follow |