They are so timid that a stranger would have a good deal of trouble to approach them. As soon as they espy one, whether white man or Indian, they give the alarm by lighting a boucan or wood-smoke; the next moment, the signal is repeated wherever one of them may be. More than 4oo have been counted at once, running at this signal to hide in the inaccessible rocks; whence it is presumed that they are very numerous. When they go out to hunt for roots and ants, they hide their young ones in the brush or in holes in the rocks. Now and then some of them will venture to leave their hiding-places and come to find the whites, to sell them their children for trifles. Sometimes the Spanish of California make incursions into their country to carry off their children. I have been assured that they treat them with humanity, give them religious instruction, and grant them their liberty as soon as they reach a certain age, or else keep them in a sort of slavery, intrusting to them the care of their horses or making them work on their farms. I have had the consolation of baptizing several of these wretched creatures; they too have given me the same account. It would be easy to find guides among these new converts, and by this means one could introduce himself among those poor forsaken creatures, teach them the consoling news of the gospel and render their lot, if not happier on earth, better at least for the hope of a future of eternal happiness. If God grants me the grace to return to the mountains, and my superiors permit me, I shall gladly devote myself to the conversion of these miserable and truly pitiable men.
The country of the Utahs is situated east and southeast from that of the Shoshones, upon the sources of the Rio Colorado [Green river] ; there are about 4,000 of them. They seem gentle and affable, very polite and hospitable to strangers, and charitable among themselves. They live by hunting and fishing and on fruits and roots, spontaneous products of their territory. There is nothing extraordinary