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Show BY PATH AND TRAIL. 95 hereafter. The nearer we come to the man who has no higher law than his own will, nor knows obedience to a higher authority than himself, the nearer we come to a dangerous animal who eats raw meat, indecently exposes himself, loves dirt, hates peace, wallows in the filth of unrestrained desire and kills the weaker man he/ does not like whenever the temptation comes and the opportunity is present. And low as the man can fall, the woman falls lower. " Corruptio optimae pessima" the corrup tion of the best is ever the worst and all nature exposes nothing to the pity and melancholy wonder of man more supremely sad and heartrending that woman reduced to savagery. The Jesuit fathers, who established sixteen missions in Lower California, beginning in 1683, sent to their pro vincial in Mexico City from time to time, accurate reports of the condition of the tribes and the progress of religion and civilization among them. From the letters of these great priests which, in places, bear upon the degeneracy and pitiable condition of the Lower California Indians, and the appalling degradation to which it is possible, un der adverse conditions, for human beings to descend, we obtain all the information extant of these wretched tribes. Many of these letters or " Kelaciones," are yet in manuscript, and to the average student of missionary history, inaccessible. The historical value of these " Be-laciones" has of course been long understood by schol ars, but, to the general reader, even to the educated gen eral reader, they were and are somewhat of a myth. At a very early period their value was recognized by that great traveler and historian Charlevoix, who in 1743 wrote : ' ' There is no other source to which we can resort to learn the progress of religion among the Indians, and |
