in 1595 that he made a
contract with the Viceroy of New Spain to colonize it at his own
expense. He was delayed, however, and could not set out until early in
1597, when he started with four hundred colonists, including two hundred
soldiers, women and children, and great herds of cattle and flocks of
sheep. In due time he reached what is now the village of Chamita,
calling it San Gabriel de los Espanoles, a few miles north of Santa Fe,
and there established, in September, 1598, the first town of New Mexico,
and the second of the United States (St. Augustine, in Florida, having
been the first, established in 1560 by Aviles de Menendez).

The work of Onate and the epoch it represents is graphically,
sympathetically and understandingly treated, _from the Indian's
standpoint_, by Marah Ellis Ryan, in her fascinating and illuminating
novel, _The Flute of the Gods_, which every student of the Missions of
New Mexico and Arizona (as also of California) will do well to read.

New Mexico has seen some of the most devoted missionaries of the world,
one of these, Fray Geronimo de Zarate Salmeron, having left a most
interesting, instructive account of "the things that have been seen and
known in New Mexico, as well by sea as by land, from the year 1538 till
that of 1626."

This account was written in 1626 to induce other missionaries to enter
the field in which he was so earnest a laborer. For eight years he
worked in New Mexico, more than 280 years ago. In 1618 he was parish
priest at Jemez, mastered the Indian language and baptized 6566 Indians,
not counting those of Cia and Santa Ana. "He also, single-handed and
alone, pacified and converted the lofty pueblo of Acoma, then hostile to
the Spanish. He built churches and monasteries, bore the fearful
hardships and dangers of a missionary's life then in that wilderness,
and has left us a most valuable chronicle." This was translated by Mr.
Lummis and appeared in _The Land of Sunshine_.

The missionaries who accompanied Juan de Onate in 1597 built a chapel at
San Gabriel, but no fragment of it remains, though in 1680 its ruins
were referred to. The second church in New Mexico was built about 1606
in Santa Fe, the new city founded the year before by Onate. This church,
however, did not last long, for it was soon outgrown, and in 1622, Fray
Alonzo de Benavides, the Franciscan historian of New Mexico, laid the
foundation of the parish church, which was completed in 1627. When, in
18