The Administration of the Missions                   89
upon it could make it go at sufficient rate to give the mill-
stone the requisite velocity. The wheel was constructed in
the following manner: A set of so-called spoons were stuck
into the periphery of the wheel which served in the place of
float boards. They were made of pieces of timber in some-
thing of the shape of spoons ; the handles were inserted into
the mortises on the edge of the wheel; and the bowls of the
spoons received the water which spouted on them and forced
round the small wheel with nearly the velocity which im-
pinged upon it.11
Besides agriculture, the Indians were taught various practical
trades by the friars. Pottery, carpentry, and masonry, the
making of shoes, hats, clothes, soap and candles, hide-tanning,
spinning, and blacksmithing, are some of the handicrafts men-
tioned in the reports of the missionaries.
While it would not be historically accurate to state that the
administration of the Texas missions can be completely learned
from the description we possess of the Franciscan missions in
California, nevertheless it must be remembered that the daily
routine and other regulations observed in California were com-
piled by Father Pedro Perez Mezquia, who till 1744, had labored
in the missions of Texas, and afterwards in those of Sierra Gorda,
Mexico, whence Father Junfpero Serra introduced them to his
beloved converts in the missions on the coast.12
This glorious picture is not without its shadows. The truth
is that, unless the Indians were under contract by piece-work,
he, or she, never worked unless a friar was present to direct the
labor. All the year's toil on the part of the missionaries failed
to eradicate the deepest of all the vices the Indian possessed—
laziness—and the friars are not loath in their frank reports to
the guardians of Zacatecas and Queretaro to admit that with
many, if not with all, of their neophytes, the chief attraction
was free food. "Nothing seemed to give them greater pleasure
than to lie stretched out for hours upon the ground with their
faces down, doing absolutely nothing and indifferent to every-
thing."13 Yet in spite of this general laziness, the friars did not
neglect to provide amusements for the Indians. In fact, amuse-
ments of legitimate character had to be supplied in order to sup-
11 Ibid., II, p. 257-261.
u Missionary Labors, in the Franciscan Herald, June, 1916, p. 232.
" Bancroft, Native Races, I, pp. 393-394.