TRAVELS IN THE CALIFOENIAS. 
223 
San Luis Gonzaga. Lastly, he turns his attention to the con¬ 
version of the Indians on the Pacific coast, from the mission 
of San Xavier southward to the Coras; and founds among 
them a new mission. The Padre has now spread his labors 
over an immense tract of country, extending forty leagues up 
the Peninsula from Cape San Lucas, and embracing the whole 
territory from one coast to the other. 
The soil of this region is extremely poor. A small tract 
at Aparte on which the Indians are enabled to raise sufficient 
maize for sustenance, is all that can be cultivated. And be¬ 
sides the physical difficulties incident to these desolate wastes, 
the Padre has savage poverty and its inseparable mental de¬ 
gradation, to weaken his hands and try his faith. This is pe 
culiarly distressing to the good Padre. It appears to him im¬ 
possible to bring these Indians into civilized habits of living, 
without the industry acquired by the cultivation of the soil. 
Notwithstanding all these momentous obstacles, however, (and 
few can appreciate them who have not seen the poor starving 
Indian in his native wilderness), the good Padre’s labors here 
are so efficient and deeply grounded in the true philosophy of 
love, that these savages, once so vindictive and turbulent, are 
so changed as to stand firm during all the subsequent rebel¬ 
lions of the south, and offer the Padres and Christian Indians, 
flying from the treacherous and cruel Pericues and Coras, an 
affectionate and safe asylum in the mission de los Dolores del 
Sur. During the year 1721, another mission endowed by the 
Marques de la Puente, has been founded in the nation of the 
Coras, near Cape San Lucas, under Padre Ignacia Maria Na¬ 
poli. Padre Ugarte, before embarking on his survey of the 
gulf, gave direction to Padre Napoli to wait the arrival of the 
bark with supplies from Mexico, and taking whatever he 
stood in need of for his new station, to proceed in the bark to 
La Paz, and thence by land to the Bay of Islands, the place 
chosen for his mission. This vessel arrives in the middle of 
July; and on the twenty-first, Padre Napoli embarks with 
four soldiers and Captain Don Estevan Rodriguez; and on 
