Page:Life in Mexico vol 1.djvu/349

Rh formed a great intimacy, chiefly in consequence of the interest which he has taken in the history of their missions to California.

In fact, when we hear the universal outcry that is raised against these communities for the inutility of their lives, it is but just that exceptions should be made in favor of those orders, who, like the monks of San Fernando, have dispersed their missionaries over some of the most miserable parts of the globe, and who, undeterred by danger, and by the prospect of death, have carried light to the most benighted savages. These institutions are of a very remote date. A learned Jesuit monk, Eusebio Kühn, is said to have been the first who discovered that California was a peninsula. In 1683 the Jesuits had formed establishments in Old California, and for the first time it was made known, that the country which had until then been considered an El Dorado, rich in all precious metals and diamonds, was arid, stony, and without water or earth fit for vegetation; that where there is a spring of water, it is to be found amongst the bare rocks, and where there is earth, there is no water. A few spots were found by these industrious men, uniting these advantages, and there they founded their first missions.

But the general hatred with which the Jesuits were regarded, excited suspicion against them, and it was generally supposed that their accounts were false, and that they were privately becoming possessed of much treasure. A visitador (surveyor) was sent to examine into the truth, and though he could discover no traces of gold or silver, he was