The priests all wore the eager expressions of children. "Could we not see them first?" asked Father Landaeta of his superior; and Father Abella sent a servant with an order to unload the horse and bring in the presents. Not a vestige of reserve lingered. Priests and guests sat about the table eating and drinking and chatting as were they old friends reunited, and Rezanov extracted much of the information he desired. The white population--"gente de razon"--of Alta California, the peculiar province of the Franciscans--the Jesuits having been the first to invade Baja California, and with little success--numbered about two thousand, the Christianized Indians about twenty thousand. There were nineteen Missions and four Presidial districts--San Diego, close to the border of Baja California, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Francisco. Each Mission had an immense grant of land, or rancho--generally fifteen miles square--for the raising of live stock, agricultural necessities, and the grape. At the Presidio of San Francisco there were some seventy men, including invalids; and the number varied little at the other military centres, Rezanov inferred, although there was a natural effort to impress the foreigner with the casual inferiority of the armed force within his ken. Cattle and horses increased so rapidly that every few years there was a wholesale slaughter, although the agricultural yield was enormous. What the Missions were unable to manufacture was sent them from Mexico, and disposed of the small salaries of the priests; the "Pious Fund of California" in the city of Mexico being systematically embezzled. The first Presidio and Mission were founded at San Diego in July of 1769; the last at San Francisco in September and October of 1776. Rezanov's polite interest in the virgin country was cut short by the entrance of two Indians carrying heavy bundles, which they opened upon the floor without further delay. The cloth of gold was magnificent, and the padres handled it as rapturously as had their souls and fingers been of the sex symbolized while exalted by the essence of maternity, in whose service it would be anointed. Rezanov looked on with an amused sigh, yet conscious of being more comprehending and sympathetic than if he had journeyed straight from Europe to California. It was not the first time he had felt a passing gratitude for his uncomfortable but illuminating sojourn so close to the springs of nature. The priests were as well pleased with the pieces of fine English cloth; and as their own homespun robes rasped like hair shirts, they silently but uniformly congratulated themselves that the color was brown. Father Abella turned to Rezanov, his saturnine features relaxed.