San Xavier 
87 
this order, superseding the Jesuit, was making settlements, 
1769-70, at San Diego and Monterey, as well as taking a 
prominent part in those already long established on the Rio 
Grande. There was no overland connection between the Cali¬ 
fornia missions and those of Sonora and the Rio Grande, and 
the desire to explore routes for such communication was one 
of the incentives of both Garces and Escalante, in their long 
entradas. But it seemed to be the habit of those days, either 
never to seek information as to what had previously been ac¬ 
complished, or to forget it, for the expedition of Onate might as 
well never have been made so far as its effect on succeeding 
travels was concerned. He had crossed Arizona by the very 
best route, yet Escalante, 172 years afterward, goes searching 
for one by way of Utah Lake! Coming from the west, the 
Moki Towns were ever the objective point, for they were well 
known and offered a refuge in the midst of the general desola¬ 
tion. Garces had his headquarters at the mission of San 
Xavier del Bac, or Bac, as it was commonly called, nine miles 
south of the present town of Tucson. Here Kino had begun 
a church in 1699, and at a later period another better one was 
started near by. This was finished in 1797 and to-day stands 
the finest monument in the South-west of the epoch of the 
padres. It is a really beautiful specimen of the Mexico-Span- 
ish church architecture of that time. No better testimony 
could there be of the indefatigable spiritual energy of the 
padres than this artistic structure standing now amidst a few 
adobe houses, and once completely abandoned to the elements. 
Such a building should never be permitted to perish, and it 
well merits government protection. Its striking contrast to Casa 
Grande, the massive relic of an unknown time, standing but a 
few leagues distant, will always render this region of exceptional 
interest to the artist, the archaeologist, and the general traveller. 
From Bac, under the protection of the presidio of Tubac, 
some thirty miles farther south, later transferred (1776) to the 
present Tucson, Garces carried on his work. He made five 
great entradas from the time of his arrival in June, 1768. The 
first was in that same year, the second in 1770, but in these he 
did not reach the Colorado, and we will pass them by. In 
