Establislzment and Early Progress of San Xav-ier 111issions
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remember. On its banks he had established a camp for two days. With him were Fathers Fray Juan Martinez de Parra, a Queretaran missionary, and Fray Gabriel Fernandez Cabriada, a Zacatecan. From the point where he struck the San Xavier he had followed this stream to where it entered the first branch of the Brazos (present Little River) . 10 This had given him an opportunity to observe the stream and it offered no facilities for irrigation such as Fray Mariano described. It was not unusual to make such an error concerning facilities for irrigation, he went on to affirm. In 1730 Fray Gabriel Vergara and Fray Pedro Munoz had thought irrigation was practical on the San Marcos to which they proposed to move the three Queretaran missions in East Texas. \Vhen this stream, which was located about twenty-two leagues (about sixty miles) from San Antonio was examined, no suitable place for an irrigation ditch could be discovered. Bustillo y Ceballos, as Captain of La Bahia, had accompanied the missionaries together with Governor Mecliavilla y Azcona. In an effort to find a location for the three missions, careful explorations were made at that time of the Guadalupe, the Frio, Las Nueces, and many creeks that flowed into those streams. The missions had ultimately to be placed on the San Antonio. The location of the proposed missions on the San Xavier had one other serious objection. This river was on the main pass through the hills used by the Apaches in their frequent raiding expeditions. The missions would, therefore, be constantly exposed to their depredations. The suggestion that several other Indian nations, chiefly from the coastal region, would come to be congregated in the new missions, he seriously doubted. Among those mentioned were the Bidais. This tribe lived along the coast from the mouth of the Trinity to the Sabine, a river that flowed down from the vicinity of Los Adaes. They were a proud, fierce, and insolent people, who preyed habitually on the Tejas Indians, who tolerated them and overlooked their outrages because they feared them. From the Trinity west as far as La Bahia lived the Cocos, Cujanes, Guapites, Copanes, and Karankawas. The nations, it was now intimated, might be congregated in the new missions. The possibility, Bustillo y Ceballos declared, was remote. For twenty-five years they had resisted all efforts to convert them. He knew them from seven years of acquaintance while at La Bahia. Their promises could not be trusted.
1 °For a fuller account of this expedition see Dunn, "Apache Relations," T/ri Quarterl11, XVI.
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