Explore "The Tiger-Slayer" by Gustave Aimard on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The Mexican frontier, up to the old Jesuit missions, now abandoned and falling in ruins, forms the skirt of the great prairie of the Rio Gila or of Apacheria, which extends as far as the mournful desert of the Norte. In this portion of the prairie nature expands all that richness of growth and vegetation which may be in vain sought elsewhere.
Guetzalli was built by Count de Lhorailles on the ruins of a once flourishing mission of the reverend Jesuits, which the decree commanding their expulsion had compelled them to abandon. Without entering into discussion for or against the Jesuits, we will say, _en passant_, that these clergy rendered immense services in America; that all the missions thus founded in the desert prospered; that the Indians flocked in by thousands to range themselves beneath their paternal laws: and that certain missions, whose names we could quote were it necessary, counted as many as sixty thousand neophytes; that, as a proof of the excellence of their system, when the order was given them to give up their mission to other monks, and withdraw, their proselytes implored them to resist this unjust ostracism, and offered to defend them against everybody.