58 THE SEKI INDIANS [eth.ann.17 



next (lay tbey journeyed westward along the wash (of Sau Ignacio), 

 stoiiping, as was their custom, to baptize the sick and others, and after 

 covering 10 leagues cauiped at a tanque. On February 12 they con- 

 tinued westward over uiesquite-covered plains for 4 leagues, and then 

 turned northwestward for .! leagues along the San Ignacio to Caborca, 

 where they spent the remainder of the day in evangelic'al work. Next 

 moruiug, after saying mass, they again proceeded westward "per la 

 vega del rio abajo" (down the bank of the river); at 2 leagues distance 

 they arrived at the place at which the river "sinks", bnt continued west- 

 ward along tlie sand-wash .5 leagues farther, passing tlie night at a 

 tau(ine of turbid water. On February 1-4 they again celebrated njass, 

 and then proceeded westward over the plains ("prosiguiendo nosotros 

 al Poniente pov llanos"); at 4 leagues they reached a rancheria wliich 

 was dubbed Sau Valentin (still persisting as a Papago temporale; the 

 "Bisauig" of various maps), watered from a well in the river bed; pro- 

 ceeding westward ("prosiguiendo al Poniente") h'agnes farther, they 

 ascended a sierra trending from sonth to north ("trasmontada una 

 sierra que sita de Sur li Norte") of whicli they named the principal 

 peak Nazareno, in a dry and sterile barranca in which they afterward 

 slept; fioni this sierra they saw "the Gulf of California, and, on the 

 farther coast, four mountains of that territory, which we named Los 

 Cuatro Stos. Evaiigelistas, and toward the northwest an islet with three 

 cerritos named Las Tres Marias, and in the southwest the Lsla de Seris, 

 to which they retreat when jjursued by soldiers for their robberies, 

 which we call San A gustin and others Tiburon." ' The record continues : 



On the fifteenth, after saying mass, we continued our route to the west hy a dry 

 and stony ravine which there is between the mountains, and at 3 h-agiies we met 

 sonic Indians taking water from a small well in earthen jars, who, on seeing us, 

 ran away, Hying from fear; but at two musket .shots we overtook them, treated 

 them kindly, and brought them back to the well that they might assist in watering 

 the horses, giving them all the water necessary, for the reason that they had not 

 drunk the day before. For this reason we called this place Paraje de las Ollas. 

 They were naked people, and only covered their private parts with small pieces of 

 hare skin; and one of them was so .aged that by his looks he must have been about 

 120 years old. We continued to the west over barren plains, arid and without pas- 

 ture, a country as sandy as a sea-beach, until we reached the sand-banks, where the 

 horses had great ditBculty ; and after another 7 leagues Father Kajipus and the other 

 people camped without water, and with only pasture of salt grass; but Padre Kino 

 and I [Jlange], with guides, and the governor of Los Dolores [Aguerra], in order to 

 be forehanded, went west 2 leagues farther, crossing the bed of Uio San Ignacio; 

 we arrived at the banks of an arm of the sea to which, in the sixty years that the 

 province of Sonora had been peopled, no one had come, and we were the first who 

 had the great privilege of seeing the Island of the Seris an<l that of Tres Marias, as 

 well .'IS the niountains of Cuatro Evangelistas, in California, on the other side of the 

 gulf, the width of which, according to the measuring instruments .at this position 

 of 30^^ [actually about 30° 35'], is some 20 leagues. We returned to the bed of the 

 river [San Ignacio], where we found a well nearly dry; we drew from it water 

 for the horses, who had h.ad nothing to drink, and took some ourselves, although 

 it was turbid, muddy, and disagreeable. 



' Translated somewliat freely from Kesumen de Xoticiaa, in Documentos para la Historia de Mexico, 

 cuarta s6rie, tomo i, 1856, pp. 235-236. 



