Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/728

Rh was not to have long the benefit of Curiel's services. He died in or about March 1576, tenderly cared for by the bishop and all classes, who deplored his loss.

The house at Valladolid for upwards of a year relied almost wholly on the assistance of the Franciscan and Austin friars, and on alms begged from door to door. However, this poverty was not of long duration. A rich Basque, named Juan de Arbolancha, whose advanced age and infirmities forbade a formal admission into the society, took up his abode at the college in Patzcuaro, and on dying bequeathed it most of his fortune. Viceroy Enriquez aided the college at Valladolid with one thousand pesos yearly. This relief was augmented in 1579 by the gift from Rodrigo Vazquez of a grazing farm with three thousand head of small stock. From both Patzcuaro and Valladolid missions were despatched to other towns. When some of the fathers were in Zamora the vicar of Guanajuato begged them to visit his parish. One of them accompanied him there, not without risk from the hostile Chichimecs.

Bishop Mendiola of New Galicia paved the way for the Jesuit order to enter that region, which they had planned to be the great field of their missionary labors. He asked for some of its members, and fathers Hernan de la Concha and Juan Sanchez were sent him about 1574. Those fathers subsequently visited Zacatecas and did ministerial duty there, but the provincial, not deeming it as yet a suitable field, promised to establish a house in that place at a future