88 
The Colorado River 
the third, 1771, he went down the Gila to the Colorado and de¬ 
scended the latter stream along its banks perhaps to the mouth. 
On the fourth, 1774, he went with Captain Anza to the Col¬ 
orado and farther on to the mission of San Gabriel in California, 
near Los Angeles, and in his fifth, and most important one, 
1775-76, he again accompanied Captain Anza, who was 
Church of San Xavier del Bac, near Tucson. 
Drawing by F. S. Dellenbaugh, after a photograph. 
bound for the present site 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 
* 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. Cones had planned to publish a translation of 
Font’s important diary. See Garces, by Elliot Coues, p. 172, 
