474 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



spired with terror, and all with the loss of one Christian, who was 

 killed by the bursting of his own gun. Such acts reveal the darker 

 side of mission history, and the attempt has been often made to 

 free the priests from the blame of such transactions, on the ground 

 that they were ignorant of the extreme means employed. Such 





h. 



m 



*jr?f¥ v ^^7^»? 



Fig. 5.— Coahuila Indian, formerly a Neophyte op San Gabriel Mission, Los Angeles 



County. 



can hardly have been the case. Even when the ostensible purpose 

 of the visits of the converts was peace and not war, they were 

 armed, the boat being often provided, as Beechey tells us, with 

 cannon and musketry. Under such circumstances of superiority 

 it would have needed no prophet to foretell the probable action 



