of San Francisco, there to establish a mission. Padre Font was Anza's
chaplain, and with Garces's aid later made a map of the country.* At
Yuma Garces left the Anza party, went down to the mouth of the
Colorado, and then up along the river to Mohave, and after another
trip out to San Gabriel, he started on the most important part of all
his journeys, from Mohave to the Moki Towns, the objective point of
all entradas eastward from the Colorado. The importance attached at
that time to the towns of the Moki probably seems absurd to the
reader, but it must not be forgotten that the Moki were cultivators
of the soil and always held a store of food-stuffs in reserve. They
were also builders of very comfortable houses, as I can testify from
personal experience. Thus they assumed a prominence, amidst the
desolation of the early centuries, of which the railway in the
nineteenth speedily robbed them.

* Font says of Garces: "He seems just like an Indian himself . . .
and though the food of the Indians is as nasty and disgusting as
their dirty selves the padre eats it with great gusto." Dr. Coues had
planned to publish a translation of Font's important diary. See
Garces, by Elliot Coues, p. 172, Font meant his remark as praise.


Garces, like most of his kind, was an enthusiast on the subject of
saving the souls of the natives. "It made him sick at heart," says
Coues, "to see so many of them going to hell for lack of the three
drops of water he would sprinkle over them if only they would let him
do it." With this idea ever in mind he toiled up and down the lower
Colorado, and received assistance from a Yuma chief called Captain
Palma. Once when he came up the river to Yuma, where he had left
Padre Eisarc, the report the latter gave was so encouraging that