And this is typical of the difficulty of getting the real history of the place. Jesuit Relations of New France have been published in every kind of edition, cheap and dear. Jesuit Relations of New Spain, who knows? The Franciscans succeeded the Jesuits; and the Franciscans do not read the history of the Jesuits. It comes as a shock to know that Spanish _padres_ were on the Colorado and Santa Cruz at the time Jacques Cartier was exploring the St. Lawrence. We have always believed that Spanish _conquistadores_ slaughtered the Indians most ruthlessly. Study the mission records and you get another impression, an impression of penniless, friendless, unprotected friars "footing" it 600, 700, 900 miles from Old Mexico to the inmost recesses of the Desert canyons. In late days, when a friar set out on his journey, twenty mounted men acted as his escort; and that did not always save him from death; for there were stretches of the journey ninety miles without water, infested every mile of the way by Apaches; and these stretches were known as the Journeys of Death. When you think of the ruthless slaughter of the _conquistadores_, think also of the friars tramping the parched sand plains for 900 miles. While Fray Juan de la Asuncion and Pedro Nadol are the first missionaries known in Arizona about 1538, Father Kino was the great missionary of 1681 to 1690, officiating at the Arizona Missions of San Xavier del Bac and Tumacacori. There are reports of the Jesuits being among the Apaches as early as 1630--say early as the days of the Jesuits in Canada; but who the missionaries were, I am unable to learn. Rebellion and massacre devastated the Missions in 1680 and in 1727; but by 1754, the missionaries were back at San Xavier and had twenty-nine stations commanding seventy-three different pueblos. In 1767, for political reasons, the Jesuits suffered expulsion; and the Franciscans came in--tramping, as told before, 600 and 900 miles. It was under the Franciscans that the present structure of San Xavier was built. Garcez was the most famous of the Franciscans. He spent seven years among the Pimas and Papagoes and Yumas; but one hot midsummer Sunday--July 17, 1781--during early mass, the Indians rose and slew four priests, all the Spanish soldiers and all the Spanish servants. Garcez was among the martyrs. San Xavier, as it at present stands, is supposed to have been completed in 1797; but in 1827-9, came another political turnover and all foreign missionaries were expelled. Tumacacori and San Xavier were always the most important of the Arizona Missions. Originally quite as magnificent a structure as San Xavier, Tumacacori has been allowed to go to ruin. Of late, it has been made a United States monument. It is a day's journey from Tucson.