nde, and the desire to explore routes
for such communication was one of the incentives of both Garces and
Escalante, in their long entradas. But it seemed to be the habit of
those days, either never to seek information as to what had previously
been accomplished, or to forget it, for the expedition of Onate might as
well never have been made so far as its effect on succeeding travels was
concerned. He had crossed Arizona by the very best route, yet Escalante,
172 years afterward, goes searching for one by way of Utah Lake! Coming
from the west, the Moki Towns were ever the objective point, for
they were well known and offered a refuge in the midst of the general
desolation. Garces had his headquarters at the mission of San Xavier del
Bac, or Bac, as it was commonly called, nine miles south of the present
town of Tucson. Here Kino had begun a church in 1699, and at a later
period another better one was started near by. This was finished in 1797
and to-day stands the finest monument in the South-west of the epoch
of the padres. It is a really beautiful specimen of the Mexico-Spanish
church architecture of that time. No better testimony could there be
of the indefatigable spiritual energy of the padres than this artistic
structure standing now amidst a few adobe houses, and once completely
abandoned to the elements. Such a building should never be permitted to
perish, and it well merits government protection. Its striking contrast
to Casa Grande, the massive relic of an unknown time, standing but a few
leagues distant, will always render this region of exceptional interest
to the artist, the archaeologist, and the general traveller.

From Bac, under the protection of the presidio of Tubac, some thirty
miles farther south, later transferred (1776) to the present Tucson,
Garces carried on his work. He made five great entradas from the time of
his arrival in June, 1768. The first was in that same year, the second
in 1770, but in these he did not reach the Colorado, and we will pass
them by. In the third, 1771, he went down the Gila to the Colorado and
descended the latter stream along its banks perhaps to the mouth. On the
fourth, 1774, he went with Captain Anza to the Colorado and farther on
to the mission of San Gabriel in California, near Los Angeles, and in
his fifth, and most important one, 1775-76, he again accompanied Captain
Anza, who was bound for the present site of San Francisco, there to
establish a mission. Padre