One of the earliest chroniclers was Padre Juan Maria de Sonora, who in 1699-1701 inspected many of the missions of Lower California and Sonora and acquainted himself in exceptional degree with the neophytes and their wilder kindred. About the beginning of 1701 he crossed with great danger (“pasé con grande peligro”) from Loreto to the eastern coast, and, accompanied by two “Indios Guaymas, caciques,” proceeded among the Sonoran settlements.[79] On February 18 he was at the new town of Magdalena (de Tepoca), “where, with great labor, Padre Melchor Bartiromo had gathered more than a hundred souls of the maritime nation of Tepocas”, and where the visitors were accorded an enthusiastic reception. He went on to say: [79] Documentos para la Historia de Mexico, cuarta série, tomo V; Mexico, 1857, pp. 125-126. It is notable that where the Tepocas and Salineros are located the sea is populous with islands [muy poblado de islas], and the first of these toward the coast contains foot-folk [gente de á pié], who live on it. Then there are two islands much nearer the mainland of California, and it is said that they [the Tepoka] are able to navigate in their barquillas [balsas] to the adjacent coast; and the possession of these Tepocas, who are all Seris by nation, of certain words of the Cuchimies of [Lower] California, who occupy the opposite coast, indicates that they have communicated in other times.[80] [80] Ibid., p. 132. This record is especially significant as indicating the affinity between the Seri and the Tepoka, as establishing the transnavigation of the Gulf by the Seri craft, and as explaining the possible passage of loan words from the Cochimi to the Seri, and presumptively from the Seri to the Cochimi. A notable visitor to the shores of Seriland was Padre Juan Maria Salvatierra, who had previously “made a peace betwixt the Seris cristians, and the Pimas”, soon violated by the former “in the murder of 40 Pimas”. In August, 1709, he essayed the recovery of a vessel wrecked “on the barren coast of the Seris”, which these Indians were engaged in looting and breaking up for the nails; and, by dint of his “persuasive elocution ... not a little forwarded by the respectable sweetness of his air”, aided by timely explosions of the bark’s pateraroes (mortars), he induced restitution, the restoration of peace, and the reinstatement of several of the robbing and murdering Seri as communicants.[81] Padre Salvatierra observed the distinctive character of the Seri tongue, but made no extended exploration of Seriland, either coastwise or interior. [81] Venegas, A Natural and Civil History of California, vol. I, pp. 405-411.