Their  interests  in  the  Indians  were  many  and  genuine,
and  they  treated  the  simple  natives  with  a  fatherly  affec-
tion. In  the  second  period  the  Indians  had  sunk  into
the  condition  of  slaves.  They  were  herded  to  their  work
like  animals,  almost  anything  was  thought  good  enough
for  their  food  and  clothing,  and  they  were  punished  fre-
quently and  severely.  Several  new  priests  had  come  from
Mexico  to  take  the  place  of  the  older  ones  who  had  died
or  been  obliged  to  leave  California ;  they  looked  with
less  and  less  interest  on  the  stupid  neophytes,  until
they  began  to  regard  them  as  made  only  to  do  the  work
of  the  missions,  —  to  be  punished  if  they  did  not,  and  to
be  caught  and  brought  back  if  they  tried  to  run  away
from  their  hard  tasks.  It  is  not  strange,  perhaps,  that
from  being  always  with  the  savages,  the  new  missionaries
came  to  look  on  them  as  hopelessly  weak,  and  that  a
species  of  slavery  became  established  in  every  mission,
more  or  less  severe  according  to  the  nature  of  the  priests.
In  this  second  period,  the  fatherly  punishments  of
earlier  days  gave  way  to  those  given  less  sympathetically.
