He deposited a gold piece among the candles on the table and followed Father Abella through a side door. A corridor ran behind the long line of rooms designed not only for priests but for travellers al-ways sure of a welcome at these hospitable Mis-sions. Father Abella shuffled ahead, halted on the threshold of a large room, and ceremoniously in-vited his guests to enter. Two other priests stood before a table set with wine and delicate confec-tions, their hands concealed in their wide brown sleeves, but their unmatched physiognomies--the one lean and jovial, the other plump and resigned--alight with the same smile of welcome. Father Abella mentioned them as his coadjutor Father Martin Landaeta, and their guest Father Jose Uria of San Jose; and then the three, with the scant rites of genuine hospitality, applied themselves to the tick-ling of palates long unused to ambrosial living. Re-sponding ingenuously to the glow of their home-made wines, they begged Rezanov to accept the Mis-sion, burn it, plunder it, above all, to plan his own day.
"I hope that I am to see every detail of your great work," replied the diplomatic guest of honor. "But at your own leisure. Meanwhile, I beg that you will order one of your Indians to bring in the little presents I venture to offer as a token of my respect.
You may have heard that the presents of his Im-perial Majesty were refused by the Mikado of Japan. I reserved many of them for possible use in our own possessions, particularly a piece of cloth of gold. This I had intended for our church at New Archangel, but finding the priests there more in need of punishment than reward, I concluded to bring it here and offer it as a manifest of my ad-miration for what the great Franciscan Order of the Most Holy Church of Rome has accomplished in the Californias. Have I been too presump-tuous?"
The priests all wore the eager expressions of chil-dren.
"Could we not see them first?" asked Father Lan-daeta of his superior; and Father Abella sent a ser-vant with an order to unload the horse and bring in the presents.
Not a vestige of reserve lingered. Priests and guests sat about the table eating and drinking and chatting as were they old friends reunited, and Rezanov extracted much of the information he de-sired. The white population--"gente de razon"--of Alta California, the peculiar province of the Franciscans--the Jesuits having been the first to invade Baja California, and with little success--numbered about two thousand, the Christianized Indians about twenty thousand. There were nine-teen Missions and four Presidial districts--San Diego, close to the border of Baja California, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Francisco. Each Mis-sion had an immense grant of land, or rancho--generally fifteen miles square--for the raising of live stock, agricultural necessities, and the grape.
