172 
SCENES IN THE PACIFIC. 
trines of the Catholic Church, inured to patient labor, and 
residing in comfortable houses. He has turned the mountain 
streams along the crags, and changed the barren dust of the 
mountains into cultivated fields, burdened with harvests of 
wheat, maize, and other grains. He even makes generous 
wines, sufficient to supply the missions in California, and an 
overplus to exchange in Mexico for other goods. He like¬ 
wise breeds horses and sheep, cattle and mules. Indeed, such 
is the success of Padre Ugarte’s fortitude and industry, that 
in 1707 he becomes the Purveyor-General of the missions, 
and relieves them by the produce of his converts’ labor, from 
some of the fears of starvation on that desolate coast. 
Thus has this excellent man, in the course of seven years, 
opened, by his individual influence on the Californian Indians, 
a large plantation, the products of which, in favorable seasons, 
feed thousands of savages and seven hundred whites. His 
efforts now take another direction. His sheep, brought origi¬ 
nally from the opposite coast, have increased to such an ex¬ 
tent, as to yield large quantities of wool. This the Padre 
determines shall be made to clothe his naked Indians. He, 
therefore, with his own hands, makes spinning-wheels, looms, 
and other weaving apparatus, and teaches his Indians to use 
them. In order to perfect them in these manufactures, he 
obtains a master weaver, one Antonio Moran, from Tepic, 
under a salary of five hundred dollars per annum, to instruct 
them in weaving, and various other handicrafts. By these 
new manufactures, the missions are saved vast expenses for 
sail-cloth and baize. The Indians are clad ; the grains and 
vegetables, although not a full supply, are ordinarily suf¬ 
ficient to prevent famine. The cattle and the other animals 
beino- added to these, suffice to meet the necessities of the 
Californian missions. A deed of true benevolence performed, 
where human praise can never speak of it, is a jewel in the 
crown of our nature, which can never be dimmed. How it 
beams on the robes of the good man as he steps into his 
grave! How.it glistens in the tear of silent gratitude that is 
