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Our Catliolic Heritage in Texas
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willow wands and slender twigs they make large cylindrical baskets. These they fill with small stones and gravel and when the flood subsides they roll them into position." One thing puzzled the good prelate beyond measure, and in his report he makes a strenuous effort to explain it. This was the muddy nature of the flood waters. The river rose without any rains being perceptible in the vicinity. It was generally said that the cause of the flood was the melting of the snows in the far-off mountains. But because of this very reason, the bishop argues, the waters should be crystal clear, yet they were very muddy. He could not understand the phenomenon. He noticed that the settlement and missions were founded in the valley formed by the river as it flowed between two mountain ranges. In the immediate vicinity the Rio Grande, he said, flowed from west to east, although its main course came from the north. His observations in this respect are remarkably accurate for the river does in fact flow almost due east along present El Paso and all the way to Isleta. San Lorenzo, 1760. Bishop Tamar6n stayed in El Paso several days and during this time made a careful inspection of all the settlements and missions, describing each with unusual care. San Lorenzo he found to be about one league east of Guadalupe, present Juarez, down the river. This would place it about two or three miles to the east of the Mexican town. The place was locally known as El Realito. There were thirty Spanish families with ninety-two persons, and twenty-one Indian families with fifty-eight persons living in the pueblo. A Franciscan missionary looked after their spiritual needs. Unfortunately the name of the Padre is not recorded. The church was twenty-three varas long and five varas wide. Senecu. From San Lorenzo he went on two leagues to the east along the river, and came to the Pueblo and Mission of SeneCl'.1. Here there were one hundred and eleven families of Piro Indians with four hundred and twenty-five persons; eighteen families of Zuma Indians with fifty- two persons, twenty-two of whom were being instructed in the doctrina; and twenty-nine Spanish families with one hundred and forty-one persons. The church was much more pretentious than that of San Lorenzo, being thirty-six varas long, five and a half wide, and its trans~p~ measuring nine varas. A Franciscan missionary had charge of the m1ss1on. ls/eta. Two leagues to the east of Senecu was the mission "called Corpus Christi y San Antonio de la Isleta," which also had a resident
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