The missions of the Rio Grande and those of California possessed no route for overland communication. Two monks of the Franciscan order, in trying to establish such a route, established for themselves imperishable fame. They were Garces and Escalante. Not far from where Tucson now stands a mission had been founded by Kino, whom Humboldt calls the "astronomer of Ingolstadt." This was San Xavier del Bac. Franciscans were occupying the place, and there Garces made headquarters, accomplishing five journeys from that point. The presidio, or military post, of Tubac was about thirty miles south of Bac, and from that post soldiers kept watch on the natives of the region. Garces reached Bac in June, 1768, and made two preliminary explorations before the end of 1770. In 1771 he reached the Colorado over the same trail that Kino had followed long before, but the Franciscans seemed to have no record of this nor of Oñate's trail; at least they did not profit by these earlier explorations. In 1774, with Captain Anza, Garces made the trip across the Colorado through to the mission of San Gabriel, near the site of the present town of Los Angeles. In the winter of 1775-76 Garces again went with Anza, who was bound for San Francisco Bay, there to found a mission, to the Colorado, where he stopped for a time, then went on to San Gabriel. Returning to the Mohave country he struck eastward, June 4, 1776, on his celebrated entrada,[48] with no companions but the natives along the route, and on July 2d reached Oraibi, only to be there treated with supreme contempt. On the 4th he was driven from the town, and he returned to the mission of Bac by way of the Colorado River.