Crossing the Gila, Kino ascended its northern bank, and came to a country which he characterizes as the most wonderful ever seen by the eye of man. Its people, who were “kind, generous, and hospitable,” dwelt in well-built villages clustering on the banks of streams, and employed their time in the manufacture of a kind of cotton cloth and of very beautiful feather-work. They were also skillful picture-writers, and on the walls of their public buildings was preserved a pictorial record of their history. Mines of gold and silver――which they understood how to work with considerable skill, though they set but small value on the ore when excavated――promised to yield a splendid return to the emigrant, while immense flocks of sheep and herds of cattle constituted another source of almost inexhaustible wealth. Worshiping the sun as the one supreme God, these simple yet intelligent natives kept a fire ever burning on their altars in his honor. With its undying flame they connected their own prosperity, and they therefore showed little readiness to substitute for it any less material guarantee of well-being. Father Kino made few converts to the belief in the spiritual God, whose altar is the heart, and whose chief purifying agent is adversity; and, passing on among the fire-worshipers, he trod his weary way in a north-westerly direction till he came to the so-called Fire Mountain, supposed to have been the San Francisco Mountain. Here he altered his course for the East, and after a long tramp through the forest, he reached the head-waters of the Mimbres, the course of which he followed till its waters suddenly sunk away in the earth, a phenomenon often since commented upon by modern travelers. Many months were spent by the missionary in the wild districts on either side of the eccentric Mimbres, with little or no result so far as his main object was concerned, the native tribes being then, as now, peculiarly averse to the reception of religious teaching. Finding it useless to remain longer among them, our hero therefore at last resolved to return to Mexico, and there obtain recruits for the further prosecution of missionary work in the more hospitable Arizona. After no less than seven years of fruitless effort, he at last accomplished his purpose, and toward the end of 1670 we find him starting with three other Jesuits for the Gila, on the banks of which he established a mission for the conversion of the Yaquis in 1672. Between that date and 1679, no less than five missions were founded among these and others of the New Mexican tribes, the Pueblos, Opotoes, etc., themselves aiding in erecting the beautiful buildings, the ruins of which, especially that of San Xavier del Bac, in the beautiful Santa Cruz valley, still bear witness to the religious zeal and architectural skill of these early teachers in the West.