dead on the plain,
fully a mile from the mission. On one paw, which was slightly swollen,
a minute wound was discovered, supposed to have been the bite of the
venomous spider, although the Father could not tell positively. Poor
Father Uria was inconsolable, and from that day his health, which had
been deserting him for many months, yet so gradually as to be hardly
perceptible, took a sudden change for the worse, and with the long years
of toil he had lived, soon made great inroads on his strength. Less
than a year after this dire event, he became so feeble that, at his
own request, he was relieved. The last thing he did before leaving San
Buenaventura was to give his three remaining friends into the charge of
Benito, who promised to care for them faithfully, so long as they lived.
Much the Father would have liked to take them with him, but he was
growing too feeble to care for them; and once retired from his position
as head of the mission, he would not have enough power and authority to
be able to treat them as such old and dear friends should be treated. We
shall not attempt to depict the sorrowful parting between the Father and
his cats--it would need the master hand of a Dickens to keep the comic
element in the pathetic scene within due bounds. The Father, poor old
man, felt no further interest in life, broken down in health and obliged
to give up his companions, his only comfort being the thought that his
remaining days were few, and would soon pass.

He removed to Mission Santa Barbara, and there, some months later,
at the close of the year 1834, he died, worn out in the cause of his
Master.

Note.--This story of Father Uria and his oddities is not wholly
fanciful. In an early book on California occurs the following:
"At dinner the fare was sumptuous, and I was much amused at the
eccentricities of the old Padre (Father Uria), who kept constantly
annoying four large cats, his daily companions; or with a long stick
thumped upon the heads of his Indian boys, and seemed delighted thus to
gratify his singular propensities." Alfred Robinson: Life in California,
New York, 1846, Chap. IV, page 50.

Pomponio

Liberty! Liberty! For a half-century we have done nothing but repeat
this word, and one would say that those mouths which pronounce it belong
to the heads which are ignorant of its meaning, or rather that it has
no meaning; for, if one says: 'We are free!' ten others cry out at once:
'We, we are oppres