Poor Coronado, disappointed as to the finding and gaining of great
stores of wealth at Zuni, pushed on even to the eastern boundaries of
Kansas, but found nothing more valuable than great herds of buffalo and
many people, and returned crestfallen, broken-hearted and almost
disgraced by his own sense of failure, to Mexico. And there he drops out
of the story. But others followed him, and in due time this northern
portion of the country was annexed to Spanish possessions and became
known as New Mexico.

In the meantime the missionaries of the Church were active beyond the
conception of our modern minds in the newly conquered Mexican countries.

The various orders of the Roman Catholic Church were indefatigable in
their determination to found cathedrals, churches, missions, convents
and schools. Jesuits, Franciscans and Dominicans vied with each other in
the fervor of their efforts, and Mexico was soon dotted over with
magnificent structures of their erection. Many of the churches of Mexico
are architectural gems of the first water that compare favorably with
the noted cathedrals of Europe, and he who forgets this overlooks one of
the most important factors in Mexican history and civilization.

The period of expansion and enlargement of their political and
ecclesiastical borders continued until, in 1697, Fathers Kino and
Salviaterra, of the Jesuits, with indomitable energy and unquenchable
zeal, started the conversion of the Indians of the peninsula of Lower
California.

In those early days, the name California was not applied, practically
speaking, to the country we know as California. The explorers of Cortés
had discovered what they imagined was an island, but afterwards learned