MISSION OF SAN DIEGO.
This mission, situated fourteen leagues south of San Luis Rey, and near the town that bears its name, was founded in 1769 by padre Junipero Lerra, and was the first established in Alta California. Its possessions covered the whole tract of land which circles for leagues around the beautiful bay upon which its green hills look. Here the first cattle were corralled, the first sheep sheared, the first field furrowed, the first vineyard planted, and the first church bell rung. The Indian heard in this strange sound the invoking voice of his God, and knelt reverently to the earth. The success of this mission paved the way for the establishment of others, till the whole coast was sprinkled with their churches, and every green glade filled with their wild converts and lowing herds. But the padres and their neophytes are gone, and all the memorials that remain are a cumbrous ruin. Gigantic skeletons of things that were!