To many white people an Indian is always what they conceive all Indians ever have been—wild, uncultivated, useless savages. Never was idea more mistaken and cruelly ignorant. At Pala there is not an Indian on the free ration list. The putting of water upon their lands has transformed them from the crushed, disheartened, half-starved and almost despondent people they were thirteen years ago, after their removal from their beloved Palatingua, into an industrious, energetic, independent, self-supporting and self-respecting tribe.

The olive trees planted by Padre Peyri are tenderly cared for and are again in full bearing. As one now approaches Pala from either Oceanside or Agua Tibia he gazes upon a valley smiling in its dress of living green. Fields of alfalfa, corn, wheat, barley, beans, and chilis stretch out on every hand, relieved by fine orchards of apricots, peaches and olives.

For years the Indians did not take kindly to government farmers. Most of these men were too theoretical. For the past two years, however, Mr. A.T. Hammock, government farmer at Pala, has shown by example and sympathetic work the benefits of intensive farming. His practical lessons have brought many dollars into the pockets not only of the Palatinguas, but also of the other Mission Indians close to the border of the Pala reservation.

Recently the raising of late tomatoes for the Eastern market was tried with much success.

Added production enables the Indians to build better homes. Some of them have done this, as is shown in one of the illustrations, and by the time the drainage system contemplated by the government is in place many of the forlorn gift houses, erected when they first came to Pala, will be replaced by small but neat cottages.

The Palas are also successful stock raisers and have many head of cattle grazing on the wild lands of their reservation. They are also proud of their horses.

As a further evidence of progress they have now substituted for their old fiesta a modern agricultural fair.

In October, of 1915, they held their annual gathering and, after they had erected their square of ramadas, or houses of tree branches, they built one of finished lumber to contain an agricultural exhibit which consisted not only of farm products, but also preserved fruit, pastry, basketry, art lace and pottery.

Over a thousand dollars' worth of baskets and nearly a thousand dollars' worth of fine hand lace were on exhibition. Farmers from a distant county were chosen as judges and with pleased astonishment remarked that the exhibition as a whole would have taken a prize at any county fair.

Thus living with congenial administrators in a climate softer even than the city of San Diego, for the breezes of the Palomar mountains mingle with those of the Pacific in the trees which shade their humble homes; having at the end of the principal street of the village a hedged plaza, filled with blooming flowers all the year, making a frame for the old Mission chapel, which stands restored as the best preserved of the Mission chapels, a picture place of San Diego county and their place of worship; not wealthy, but having sufficient for the necessities and some of the comforts of life; it is little wonder that the Indian of Pala pursues the even tenor of his way, happy and without a care for the future.