Francis.

When they reached the vicinity of the Gila River, the governors of
several of the rancherias came out to meet them, with the alcalde, and a
body of Pimas Indians, mounted on horses, who presented them with the
scalps of several Apaches they had slain the day before. At the next
stopping-place along the river, they were met by about a thousand
Indians, who were very hospitable, and made a great shed of green
boughs for them, in which to pass the night.

Father Pedro observed that the country must formerly have been inhabited
by a different race, as the ground was strewn with fragments of painted
earthenware, which the Pimas did not understand making. He saw also the
ruins of an ancient building, with walls four and six feet thick. On the
east and west sides were round openings, through which, according to the
Indian traditions, the prince who lived there used to salute the rising
and setting sun.

The company travelled on, singing masses, and resting by the way, until
they reached what Father Pedro called "a miracle of Nature, the port of
ports" (San Francisco Bay). He ascended a table-land, that ended in a
steep white rock, to admire what he calls the "delicious
view,"--including the bay and its islands, and the ocean, with the
_Farallons_ in the distance, of which he made a sketch. He mentioned
Angel Island, which still bears that name. The commandant planted a
cross on the steep white rock, as the symbol of possession, and also at
Point Reyes (Point of Kings), and selected the table-land for the site
of the Presidio. Father Font explored the country about the bay, and
made some surveys. He noticed some Indians with launches made of
_tules_ (bulrushes), in which they navigated the streams.

It would have been fortunate for the Indians if all the priests sent
among them had been of as gentle a spirit as Father Pedro. He says, in
his account of this expedition, that they received him everywhere with
demonstrations of joy, with dancing and singing. But, some years after,
we hear that the soldiers were sent out from the Presidio to lasso the
Indians. They were brought in like wild beasts, immediately baptized,
and their Christianization commenced. Kotzebue, one of the early Russian
explorers, says that in his time (1824) he saw them at Santa Clara
driven into the church like a flock of sheep, by an old ragged Spaniard,
armed with a stick. Some of the more humane priests complained bitterly
of this violent met