one by way of Utah Lake! Coming from the west, the Moki Towns were
ever the objective point, for they were well known and offered a
refuge in the midst of the general desolation. Garces had his
headquarters at the mission of San Xavier del Bac, or Bac, as it was
commonly called, nine miles south of the present town of Tucson. Here
Kino had begun a church in 1699, and at a later period another better
one was started near by. This was finished in 1797 and to-day stands
the finest monument in the South-west of the epoch of the padres. It
is a really beautiful specimen of the Mexico-Spanish church
architecture of that time. No better testimony could there be of the
indefatigable spiritual energy of the padres than this artistic
structure standing now amidst a few adobe houses, and once completely
abandoned to the elements. Such a building should never be permitted
to perish, and it well merits government protection. Its striking
contrast to Casa Grande, the massive relic of an unknown time,
standing but a few leagues distant, will always render this region of
exceptional interest to the artist, the archaeologist, and the
general traveller.

From Bac, under the protection of the presidio of Tubac, some thirty
miles farther south, later transferred (1776) to the present Tucson,
Garces carried on his work. He made five great entradas from the time
of his arrival in June, 1768. The first was in that same year, the
second in 1770, but in these he did not reach the Colorado, and we
will pass them by. In the third, 1771, he went down the Gila to the
Colorado and descended the latter stream along its banks perhaps to
the mouth. On the fourth, 1774, he went with Captain Anza to the
Colorado and farther on to the mission of San Gabriel in California,
near Los Angeles, and in his fifth, and most important one, 1775-76,
he again accompanied Captain Anza, who was bound for the present site