360 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP, sometimes acorns, to which at noon is generally added meat. Clothing 
of a better kind than that worn by the Indians is given to the officers 
missions, both as a reward for their services, and to create an 
emulation in others. 
If it should happen that there is a scarcity of provisions, either 
through failure in the crop, or damage of that which is in store, as 
they have always two or three years in reserve, the Indians are sent 
off to the woods to provide for themselves, where, accustomed to hunt 
and fish, and game being very abundant, they find enough to subsist 
upon, and return to the mission, when they are required to reap the 
next year’s harvest. 
Having served ten years in the mission, an Indian may claim his 
liberty, provided any respectable settler will become surety for his 
future good conduct. A piece of ground is then allotted for his sup- 
port, but he is never wholly free from the establishment, as part of his 
earnings must still be given to them. We heard of very few to whom 
this reward for servitude and good conduct had been granted ; and 
it is not improbable that the padres are averse to it, as it deprives them 
of their best scholars. When these establishments were first founded, 
the Indians flocked to them in great numbers for the clothing with 
which the neophytes were supplied ; but after they became acquainted 
with the nature of the institution, and felt themselves under restraint, 
many absconded. Even now, notwithstanding the difficulty of escaping, 
desertions are of frequent occurrence, owing probably, in some cases, 
to the fear of punishment — in others to the deserters having been 
originally inveigled into the mission by the converted Indians or the 
neophytes, as they are called by way of distinction to Los Gentiles, or 
the wild Indians — in other cases again to the fickleness of their own 
disposition. 
Some of the converted Indians are occasionally stationed in places 
which are resorted to by the wild tribes for the purpose of offering 
them flattering accounts of the advantages of the mission, and of per- 
suading them to abandon their barbarous life ; while others obtain 
leave to go into the territory of the Gentiles to visit their friends, and 
are expected to bring back converts with them when they return. At 
