fell on Tuesday), for he himself says forty of the attendants at mass
were killed, the officiating priest and six others being all that were
saved: he does not mention the wounded, if any. This would be far too
small a number for a Sunday mass attendance.



La Beata



It was a bright summer morning in the month of June of the year 1798.
All was bustle and excitement at the wharf in the harbor of the town of
Acapulco, on the western coast of Mexico, for at noon a ship was to sail
away for the province of Nueva California, in the far north. This was
always an event to attract the attention of the town, partly from its
infrequent occurrence, but more especially because, in those days, this
northern Mexican province was an almost unknown land to the general
mind. The first expedition to the new country, under the spiritual
direction of the beloved Father Serra, had been sent out nearly thirty
years before. But so many and conflicting were the tales of wars with
the Indian natives, the struggles of the Franciscans to make and
maintain a footing, the hardships endured by all who journeyed thither -
sometimes to the point of suffering the pangs of hunger - , and, on the
other hand, the marvelous tales of the perfect climate, grand mountain
ranges with snowy peaks, fertile soil nearly everywhere, there was a
want of unanimous opinion respecting the northern land. Whenever,
therefore, from time to time, a ship was sent from the mother country to
her struggling colony, a great interest was always displayed. Each ship
would be filled with agricultural produce of all kinds, implements of