And the contemporary lore, crystallized in current administrative policy and later records, and corroborated by deep-rooted customs maintained for centuries and still persisting, is significant; it indicates that then, as now, it was the habit of the Tiburon islanders to flee from or fawn upon powerful visitors, to ambush or assail by night parties of moderate strength, to openly attack none but the weak or defenseless, yet ever to delight in tricking the credulity and consuming the stores and stock of aliens, and to revel in shedding alien blood when occasion offered. The adventurous hunters and gold seekers of the mainland, and the still hardier pearl fishers of the coast, wrote nothing; but both civil and ecclesiastical records imply common knowledge that weaker parties venturing into the purlieus of Seriland never returned—they disappeared and left no sign. * * * * * While Salvatierra and Ugarte were occupied on the coast, the missionaries were no less industrious in the interior. The mission of Santa Magdalena de Tepoca was apparently soon abandoned; but the so-called Seri missions at Populo (Nuestra Señora del Populo) and Angeles (Nuestra Señora de los Angeles) were maintained from the time of Kino’s coming up to the expulsion of the Jesuits (in 1767), while that at Nacameri was nearly as well sustained. The relations of these missions to Seriland are significant: according to the anonymous author of Sonora’s classic, “Rudo Ensayo”, written in 1763, Nacameri lay in the valley of Rio Opodepe (or Horcasitas), 7 leagues below the town of the same name (still extant); 9 leagues down the same stream lay Populo (on the site of the present town of Horcasitas); Angeles lay 3 or 4 leagues farther downstream, or over 12 leagues above the site of Pitic[88] (the present Hermosillo); while various references indicate that the temporary mission of Santa Magdalena was located in the same valley, probably a few leagues above Opodepe.[89] Accordingly, the missions ranged from 100 to 150 miles inland, measured in an air line, or four hard days’ journey, as shown by Escalante’s record, from the Seri coast. The nearest mission at Angeles was 75 miles, or three days’ journey, from the inland margin of Seriland proper, and the intervening territory was a depopulated expanse (“el grande despoblado”) according to Villa-Señor,[90] ranged but not inhabited by Seri and Tepoka hunting parties. Never traversed by white men, save those of Coronado’s parties nearly two centuries before and of Escalante’s hurried expeditions of 1700, this “despoblado” was practically unknown; even the surprisingly well-informed author of “Rudo Ensayo” was unaware of the existence of Rio Bacuache, and noted only such prominent mountains as Cerro Prieto and “Bacoatzi the Great in the land of the Seris”,[91] lying far outside the tribal home. The remoteness of the missions from the habitat of the tribe bears testimony to the dread with which they