We may commence detailed consideration of the aboriginal population with the Tulare Lake Basin, which was inhabited in 1800 by three Yokuts tribes, the Wowol, Tachi, and Chunut (see maps 1 and 2, area 2). The first official visitor to the area was Father Juan Martin who entered the valley in 1804 in search of new mission sites. He found the principal village of the Wowol, which he called Bubal. This rancheria, he said, contained not less than 200 children. It was visited again in 1806 by Moraga, who found 400 inhabitants. Eight years later Father Cabot passed the site and found 700 people. Subsequently, it was visited by Ortega in 1815 and Estudillo in 1819 but these writers gave no population figures. Since no other village was ever recorded by name in the territory of the tribe, it is safe to assume that there was no other, at least of permanence and reasonably large size. Gifford and Schenck (1926), in their discussion of the history of the southern valley, conclude that because the village was reported as having 400 persons in 1806 and 700 in 1814 there was a real increase in population during the intervening eight years. This they ascribe to fugitives from the coastal missions who entered the valley as refugees. The opinion expressed by these authors may serve as the starting point for discussion of certain general problems which are encountered in attempting to estimate the aboriginal population of the valley. In 1804 Martin saw 200 children. If we knew the ratio of children to adults, we could easily compute the total number of inhabitants. The age of "children" was variously estimated in colonial New Spain, indeed all the way from seven to fifteen years. The early California missionaries used approximately fourteen years for males and twelve for females. In 1793, however, the system was standardized for doctrinal purposes. Indians, both gentile and converted, were designated as children if they were under ten years, i.e., in the age bracket from 0 to 9 inclusive. Hence all the clergy conformed to the method in so far as they were able and unless they specified otherwise.