Two servants—one named José María Vergerano, a 20-year-old from Magdalena, the other a soldier guard—accompanied Serra on his journey from Loreto, as he rode on a feeble mule. On April 28, 1769, Serra arrived at mission San Borja, where he received a warm welcome from friar Fermín Lasuén. Founded just seven years before by the Jesuit Wenceslaus Linck, mission San Borja sat in an unusually arid region of Baja California. Continuing north, Serra stopped on May 5 to celebrate a Mass for the feast of the Ascension in the deserted church at Calamajué, scarcely more than a ruined hut. The next morning he arrived at Santa María, where he met up with Portolá, friar Miguel de la Campa and several members of their party. In this arid region, whose alkaline land resisted cultivation, lived the "poorest of all" the Indians Serra had encountered in Mexico. On Sunday May 7, Serra celebrated high Mass and preached a sermon at the mission church on the frontier of Spanish Catholicism.