Part 8 (1/2)
In the south, in the fertile valley where are now the great grain fields of Los Angeles county, San Fernando was founded. Between San Gabriel and San Diego were placed San Juan Capistrano, San Luis Rey, and the chapel of Pala. San Rafael and Solano, to the north of San Francis...o...b..y, complete the list of twenty-one missions of Upper California.
It is impossible to give more than the names of most of these missions, although about each many true and beautiful stories might be told. It would be well if those who live near one of these n.o.ble ruins would seek out its particular history and the stories connected with it. This would be interesting and helpful work for the students in the schools of the state.
The story of the missions seems like a fairy tale, wonderful and unreal. Into a wilderness inhabited only by savage men and wild animals, hundreds of miles from any civilized settlement, there came these men trained as simple priests.
Two by two they came, bringing with them, for the starting of each mission, a few soldiers, seven to ten, a few converted Indians from the missions of Lower California, a little live stock, some church furniture, and always the bells; yet in a little over forty years they had succeeded in founding a chain of missions whose sweet-toned bells chimed the hours and called to prayer from San Diego to the Bay of San Francisco.
Churches were built larger and often of a purer type of architecture than those in the civilized well-settled portions of the land,--buildings that have lasted for a hundred years and may last many years longer if care is taken to preserve them. Ca.n.a.ls of stone and cement and dams of masonry were constructed that would do credit to our best workmen of to-day.
The little packages of wheat and other grains, seeds from Spanish oranges and olives, little dried bundles of grapevines from Mexico, developed, under their care, into the great fields of grain, groves of oranges and olives, and the wide-spreading vineyards of the mission ranches. All these wonders were performed with Indian workmen trained by the padres.
But what the missionaries cared for more than their success in building and planting were the thousands of baptized Indians at each mission.
These they instructed daily for the good of their souls in the truths of the Christian religion, while for their bodily needs they were taught to plow the earth, to plant seed, to raise and care for domestic animals.
They learned also many useful trades; and music, frescoing, and art were taught those who seemed to have an especial taste for such things.
At the head of this great work was gentle Padre Junipero Serra, the most interesting character in the history of the missions. He was frail and slender and much worn by constant labor of head and hands, but his every thought and action seemed to be for others. Back and forth from Monterey to San Diego, from mission to mission, he traveled almost constantly, teaching, baptizing, confirming thousands of his dusky charges. He was president of all the missions, and besides this was bishop, doctor, judge, and architect, as well as steward of the mission products and money.
a.s.sociated with him in his work were a group of n.o.ble men whose lives were spent in caring for the native people with whom they worked and among whom they finally died. The inhabitants of California may well honor the mission padres for their earnest, unselfish lives, and in no way can this be done so fully as in the preservation of the grand old buildings they left behind, which are indeed fitting monuments to their devotion, energy, and skill.
Beginning with San Diego, let us, in fancy, visit the missions in the early part of the nineteenth century.
It is a winter day in the year 1813 when we ride up the broad, wind-swept road which leads to the newly dedicated mission building of San Diego. The wide plain that surrounds it is green with native gra.s.s and the blades of young wheat. Of the two hundred cattle, one hundred sheep, one hundred horses, and twenty a.s.ses brought up by Padre Junipero in 1769 to be divided among the earlier missions, San Diego had only its due share; yet under the wise management of the padres, they have now at this mission, feeding on the green plains, thousands of cattle, horses, and sheep, which are tended by comfortably clothed Indian herders. Near the mission are the green and gold of orange orchards, the gray of the olive, and the bare branches of extensive vineyards. At one side we see a large kitchen garden where young Indians are at work planting and hoeing.
As we draw up in front of the church, Indian servants come out to take our horses. We dismount, and a padre who is superintending work in the orchard comes and welcomes us with gentle courtesy. He sends us a servant to show us to our room, a small square apartment with a hard earthen floor and bare, whitewashed walls with no ornament but a cross.
The beds are of rawhide stretched over a frame. The covering consists of sheets of coa.r.s.e cotton grown and woven at the southern missions, and blankets, coa.r.s.e but warm, made by the Indians from the wool of the mission sheep.
Dinner at the padre's table we find most enjoyable. There is beef and chicken, the frijole, or red bean of Spain, and other vegetables prepared in a tasty manner peculiar to Spanish cooking, so we do not doubt that the cook has been taught his trade by the padre himself. The Indian boys who wait on the table also show careful training, performing their duties quickly and quietly. Here we can find for bread the tortilla,--still the food of the Indian and Mexican people of California. It is a thin cake made of meal or flour and water, and baked without grease on a hot stone or griddle. Wines made at the mission, the favorite chocolate, thick and sweet, and some fruit from the padre's garden complete the meal.
Dinner over, we visit the church and admire the striking contrast between the red tiles of the roof and the creamy white of the walls.
All the buildings are made of bricks molded from a clay called adobe and dried slowly in the sun. Each brick is twelve inches square by four inches thick, and the walls are laid two or three bricks deep, those of the church itself being nearly four feet in thickness. It seems almost impossible that so large and well made a building could have been constructed by untrained workmen. Next to the church are the rooms of the padres, then the dining room and the quarters of the mission guard, which consists apparently of but two men, the rest being at the presidio, several miles away. Adjoining these are the storehouses and shops of the Indian workmen, all of which open on the great courtyard.
In the courtyard is a busy scene. Blacksmiths with hammer and anvil make sounding blows as they work up old iron into needed farm utensils. The soap maker's caldron sends up a cloud of ill-smelling steam. At one side carpenters are at work tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and cutting square holes in logs for the beams of new buildings which the padres wish to put up. Saddle makers, squatted on the ground, are busy fas.h.i.+oning saddletrees, carving, and sewing leather. The shoemaker is hard at work with needle and awl. These and many other trades are all going on at once. These courts, which are called patios, were generally several acres in extent and at the most flouris.h.i.+ng period of the missions each settlement often gave shelter to over a thousand people.
Behind the central court is the home of the unmarried women. This, and the rooms for their work, open on a separate square where there is shade from orange and fig trees and a bathing pond supplied by the zanja, or water ditch. Here square-figured, heavy-featured Indian girls are busy spinning and weaving thread into cloth. Others are cutting out and sewing garments. Some, squatted on the ground, are grinding corn into a coa.r.s.e meal for the atole, or mush. At the zanja several are engaged in was.h.i.+ng clothes. Here these girls live under the care of an old Indian woman, and unless she accompanies them they may not, until they are married, go outside these walls. Near the mission we visit a long row of small adobe buildings, the homes of the families of the Christian Indians; a neat, busy settlement where the little ones, comfortably clothed, play about attended by the older children, while the mothers work for the padres four or five hours daily.
Leaving San Diego and traveling northward along ”El Camino Real,” the highway which leads from mission to mission, we reach San Luis Rey, ”King of the Missions,” as it is sometimes called. Its church is the largest of all those erected by the padres, being one hundred and sixty feet long, fifty-eight feet wide, and sixty feet high. Its one square, two-story tower has a chime of bells, the sweet clear tones of which reached our ears while we were yet miles from the mission. Counting the arches of the long corridor, we find there are two hundred and fifty-six. This mission became very wealthy. At one time it had a baptized Indian population of several thousand, owned twenty-four thousand cattle, ten thousand horses, and one hundred thousand sheep, and harvested fourteen thousand bushels of grain a year.
Its prosperity was due in a great measure to good Padre Peyri, who had charge of it from its beginning. Many years afterwards, as we shall see, the padres were ordered by the Mexican government to leave their missions, the wealth they had gathered, and the Indians they had taught and cared for. Father Peyri, knowing how hard it would be for him to get away from his Indian children, as he called them, slipped off by night to San Diego. In the morning the Indians missed him. Learning what had happened, five hundred of them mounted their ponies in hot haste and galloped all the way to San Diego, forty-five miles, to bring him back by force. They arrived just as the s.h.i.+p, with Padre Peyri on board, was weighing anchor. Standing on deck with outstretched arms, the padre blessed them amid their tears and loud cries. Some flung themselves into the water and swam after the s.h.i.+p. Four reached it, and, climbing up its sides, so implored to be taken on board that the padre consented and carried them with him to Rome, where one afterwards became a priest.
The next link in our chain, the most beautiful of all the missions, is that of San Juan Capistrano. It was founded in 1776, the year of our Declaration of Independence, but in 1812 it was destroyed by an earthquake, the ma.s.sive towers and n.o.ble arch falling in on the Indians, who were a.s.sembled in the church for morning prayers. Many of them were killed. The church has never been rebuilt.
It is Christmas Day when we reach San Gabriel, the next station on El Camino Real. Inside the great cactus fence which incloses the square about the mission we see a strangely mixed company,--Indians in their best clothes, their faces s.h.i.+ning from a liberal use of mission soap and water; soldiers in their leather suits freshened up for the holiday; a few ranchmen in the gay dress of the times, riding beautiful horses; women and girls each brilliant in a bright-colored skirt with shawl or scarf gracefully draped over head and shoulders.
The Christmas Day morning service, held at four o'clock and known by the common people as the Rooster Ma.s.s, is long since over. The crowd is now gathered for the Pastorel, which, like the miracle plays of the Middle Ages, is a drama with characters taken from the Bible.
First to appear on the scene is an orchestra composed of young Indians playing violins, ba.s.s viols, reeds, flutes, and guitars. Closely following come the actors, representing San Gabriel and attendant angels, Satan, Blind Bartimeus, and a company of shepherds. The entertainment is very simple. There is the announcement of the birth of the Savior, the adoration of the babe, and the offering of gifts. The play concludes with a protracted struggle between San Gabriel and Satan for the possession of Blind Bartimeus, in which the saint finally comes off victor while the orchestra plays lively music. After the Pastorel there are games, dancing, and feasting. Every one seems happy, and it is with regret that we leave the gay scene.
Through the hills to the north, across the Arroyo Seco, not dry now, but a swift stream turbulent from the winter rains, we journey on. We pa.s.s Eagle Rock, a great bowlder high upon the green hillside, one of the landmarks of the region, and enter the valley of the Los Angeles River.