e and
the Bodega Settlement, and Account by Eliza, dated November 4, 1793, at
San Blas) include no details of topography, vegetation, or ethnography
worth recording.

Late in the following year, 1794, trouble began with the natives of the
Contra Costa. The immediate cause appears to have been the zeal of the
missionaries to push conversion in the area. On November 30, 1794, the
military commander at San Francisco, Perez-Fernandez, wrote to Governor
Borica (Bancroft Trans., Prov. St. Pap., XII: 29-30) that "the
missionaries of San Francisco have requested an additional two or three
men for the guard in order to go from Santa Clara to the other shore, in
a northerly direction, as far as opposite the port [of San Francisco] to
make conquests of the heathen...." The request was refused for reasons
which in themselves throw light on the status of the East Bay natives:

1st. Because it is almost unknown country: there are indications
that the heathen who occupy it are uncooperative.

2nd. He [the Commandant] does not believe that a priest, with two
or three soldiers and some Christian Indians, constitutes a
party sufficiently strong to cross and camp overnight in
strange territory.

3rd. Although the Fathers believe this to be a favorable
opportunity, because the heathen lack food, having lost
their crop due to the severity of the drouth, and this
will facilitate catching them, he does not have the means
at his disposal for expeditions of this type.

Nevertheless, such forays were already in progress, for Perez-Fernandez
reported that the Fathers at San Francisco "sent by sea to the islands
and other shore opposite the mouth of the port some Mission Indians in
rafts of tule on the 4th of this month to capture heathen." One of the
rafts was carried as far out to sea as the Farallones, and two men were
lost.

On March 3, 1795, Perez-Fernandez again wrote to Governor Borica from
San Francisco (Bancroft Trans., Prov. St. Pap., XIII: 455-456.). (This,
and many other letters cited here, are also to be found in the Archivo
General de la Nacion, Mexico City, Ramo Californias, Vol. 65, Expediente
no. 3, entitled "Sobre la Muerte que dieron los Indios Gentiles a siete
Indios cristianos de la Mission de San Fran^{co}.") He now announced the
murder by the heathen of seven Christian Indians sent across the bay by
Fray Antonio Danti to hunt for runaw