and there established, in September, 1598, the first town of New Mexico,
and the second of the United States (St. Augustine, in Florida, having
been the first, established in 1560 by Aviles de Menendez).

The work of Oñate and the epoch it represents is graphically,
sympathetically and understandingly treated, _from the Indian's
standpoint_, by Marah Ellis Ryan, in her fascinating and illuminating
novel, _The Flute of the Gods_, which every student of the Missions of
New Mexico and Arizona (as also of California) will do well to read.

New Mexico has seen some of the most devoted missionaries of the world,
one of these, Fray Geronimo de Zarate Salmeron, having left a most
interesting, instructive account of "the things that have been seen and
known in New Mexico, as well by sea as by land, from the year 1538 till
that of 1626."

This account was written in 1626 to induce other missionaries to enter
the field in which he was so earnest a laborer. For eight years he
worked in New Mexico, more than 280 years ago. In 1618 he was parish
priest at Jemez, mastered the Indian language and baptized 6566 Indians,
not counting those of Cia and Santa Ana. "He also, single-handed and
alone, pacified and converted the lofty pueblo of Acoma, then hostile to
the Spanish. He built churches and monasteries, bore the fearful
hardships and dangers of a missionary's life then in that wilderness,
and has left us a most valuable chronicle." This was translated by Mr.
Lummis and appeared in _The Land of Sunshine_.

The missionaries who accompanied Juan de Oñate in 1597 built a chapel at
San Gabriel, but no fragment of it remains, though in 1680 its ruins
were referred to. The second church in New Mexico was built about 1606