MISSION OF SAN JUAN BOUTISTA.
This mission looms over a rich valley, ten leagues from Monterey—founded 1794. Its lands swept the broad interval and adjacent hills. In 1820 it owned 43,870 head of cattle, 1360 tame horses, 4870 mares, colts, and fillies. It had seven sheep-farms, containing 69,530 sheep; while the Indians attached to the mission drove 321 yoke of working-oxen. Its storehouse contained $75,000 in goods and $20,000 in specie. This mission was secularized in 1834; its cattle slaughtered for their hides and tallow, its sheep left to the wolves, its horses taken by the dandies, its Indians left to hunt acorns, while the wind sighs over the grave of its last padre.