The Franciscan Mission establishments in California are among the most interesting historical monuments of our country; and those of the southern end of the State remain to-day especially noteworthy. Ten miles from Los Angeles is Mission San Gabriel (founded in 1771 on the bank of the Rio Hondo a few miles east of the present site, to which it was removed in 1775). It was for many years a principal center of civilization in the province, the settlement antedating the founding of Los Angeles by several years. Of the original establishment little remains but the church part, which is in a state of good preservation and serves as a place of worship for a considerable congregation, largely of Spanish descent. Mission San Fernando (about 25 miles west of the heart of Los Angeles) is deserted, save by a caretaker. The fine corridored convento, flush with the highway, is its most conspicuous feature today, but the Mission was once of notable extent. A cloistered walk formerly connected the convento with the ruined church in the rear. If you stroll on past the church to the ancient olive orchard beyond and look back, having the two date palms there in your foreground, you will get a charming picture of the noble old temple where Padre “Napoleon” strove, during a third of the Mission’s existence, to steer his dusky children heavenward. Apropos of these California Missions (whose plan was quite different from those of New Mexico and Arizona) it should be borne in mind that originally each consisted of a huge hollow square of buildings, facing within on an open courtyard. The church occupied part or all of one side, the other sides consisting of living rooms for the one or two padres (the convento part), kitchens, store rooms, shops where the neophytes were taught and labored, and the monjerio or sleeping apartment of the Indian widows and unmarried girls of the Mission. Outside this compound were the huts of the Indian converts, arranged in streets and forming an orderly village of sometimes a couple of thousand souls.[98]
South of Los Angeles, 125 miles, is San Diego, reached either by rail, steamer, or automobile. If the last way is chosen, going and returning may be done over different highways, one following the coast, the other running further inland via Riverside. Both roads are excellent. Forty miles before reaching San Diego, you pass within calling distance of Mission San Luis Rey (St. Louis, the King)—4 miles east of Oceanside, a railroad stop where conveyance may be had for the Mission. San Luis Rey was founded in 1798 and in its proportions rivaled San Juan Capistrano. It is still an imposing establishment, though restored with rather too heavy a hand to suit the artistic sense. The situation is charming, on a knoll in the midst of a noble valley, emerald green in winter and spring, the San Luis Rey River flowing close by the Mission. A community of hospitable Franciscan brothers occupies the premises, and religious services are regularly held in the church. Twenty miles further up the river (eastward), a pleasant drive, is San Luis Rey’s sub-mission or asistencia, San Antonio de Pala, which no lover of the picturesque should miss visiting. White-walled and red-tiled, the quaint little church with a remarkable, white bell-tower set not on it but beside it, is one’s beau ideal of an old mission. The setting, too, is satisfying. On every hand are the mountains; a stone’s throw away ripples the little river; and clustered close by is a picturesque village of about 300 Indians, to whom a resident priest, with rooms in the Mission, is cura. Both Mission San Luis Rey and this outpost of Pala were constructed by Indians under the supervision of the famous Padre Peyri, one of the most forceful and devoted of the early Franciscans in California. He gave the best of his life to his wilderness flock, and years after his departure, the Indians, in reverence of his memory, would still offer up their prayers before his picture as before a saint’s.
San Diego, a city claiming a population of 100,000, is spread over seaward-looking hills affording a delightful view of the land-locked Bay of San Diego and the Pacific Ocean going down to China. The mountains of Old Mexico, too, only 20 miles away, make a feature in the prospect. If you are in any doubt what to do in San Diego, you need only stroll around to the neighborhood of the Plaza, and you will be shown. Street cars, automobiles, “rubberneck” busses and tourist agency windows are hung with notices of places to see and trips to take, and the streets are sprinkled with uniformed officials emblazoned with gold lace, to give you details. You may have a good time on any of these jaunts, if you are good-natured and like a bit of roughing it (for San Diego’s vicinity has not as yet reached Los Angeles County’s excellence in roads); but to give you a start I would itemize the following as not to be overlooked:
The exquisite gardens at Balboa Park (where the Panama-California Exposition of 1915-16 was held), affording in epitome a charming object lesson in what California gardens offer both in exotic and native plants; the drive to and along the headland of Point Loma for the fine views; by ferry across the bay to Coronado’s famous hotel and beach; the ride by railway or automobile to La Jolla (pronounced lah ho´ yah), a pleasant little seaside resort with interesting cliffs and surf-drenched rocks; by street car to Old Town (where San Diego had its beginning), to visit the Estudillo house—a former Spanish home intelligently restored and interesting as a bit of old-time architecture with its tiled inner corridors about a flowery patio. It is locally known as “Ramona’s Marriage Place,” because it was here, according to the novel, that the priest lived who married Ramona and Alessandro. On the hill back of Old Town once stood Padre Junípero Serra’s first Mission in California, founded in 1769; but it is all gone now, the site being marked by a large cross made of the original red tiles that once littered the ground. It is but a short walk worth taking both for the view and for the sentiment of standing on the spot where white civilization in California had its beginning. Five miles up the valley that stretches eastward at your feet is what is left of the second Mission (established in 1774). This historic building has been sadly neglected and is but a ruined shell, which only reverence for its past makes interesting. Across the road from it is the old olive orchard, believed to be the original planting of the olive in the State.
San Diego’s back country offers many interesting trips by auto-stage or private car, the roads being as a rule good but with the ups and downs of a hilly region. There are several good hotels in the mountains at a distance of 60 miles or so from San Diego, so that the night may be spent here if desired. Pine Hills, Mesa Grande, and Warner’s Hot Springs may be mentioned as desirable objectives. The trip by auto-stage or your own car via Campo to El Centro or Calexico (at the Mexican border) in the Imperial Valley will prove an unforgettable experience. The Imperial Valley is a depression below sea-level in the Colorado Desert of California, which after lying desolate for ages has of late been made exceedingly productive by diverting irrigation water to it from the Colorado River. This trip had best be made between November and May, as the desert heat in summer and early autumn is intense. If you have your own car and desire the experience of more desert, return may be made around the Salton Sea through the Coachella Valley (where dates are now extensively grown), to Palm Springs and Riverside.
While we have rambled along the coast between Los Angeles and San Diego, our eyes will often have been caught by the sight of a long, low island well out to sea. It is Santa Catalina, whose reputation as a sea-angler’s paradise is world wide. It has also a most delightful climate—its and San Diego’s being perhaps the most equable of any on the Coast. The marine gardens that line the shores are also of wide fame, and are made visible by boats with glass bottoms, through which one looks down into the transparent waters of another world where waving kelps and sea mosses are the forests and bright colored fish, sea anemones, jelly fish, sea cucumbers and other queer creatures are the inhabitants. The trip thither and return may be accomplished from Los Angeles, between breakfast and evening dinner, if you do not care to stay longer.
A hundred miles northwest of Los Angeles lies Santa Barbara (a little city of 15,000), rich in beautiful homes and flowery gardens. It is delightfully situated with the ocean at its feet and the Santa Inés Mountains at its back, and may be reached from Los Angeles either by train or by a picturesque motor drive through valleys, over mountains and beside the sea. Here is the best preserved of all the existing Franciscan Missions in California—never abandoned since its founding in 1786, though now for many a year there have been no Indians in its care. It is the residence of a Franciscan community, and the members in their long brown gowns and white cord girdles may be seen any day at their various tasks about the grounds—one of which is the piloting of visitors through the church.
Driving, horseback-riding, playing golf, or simply sitting still and enjoying being alive in the midst of fine scenery, are the principal occupations of Santa Barbara’s visitors. Among the longer drives should be mentioned the 40 miles to the Ojai Valley by way of the lovely Casitas Passes, and the 45 miles across the Santa Inés Mountains to the Mission Santa Inés in the valley of the same name. The latter trip is made more enjoyable if two days are taken to it, the mountains being crossed by the San Marcos Pass[99] into the Valley of Santa Inés, famous for its majestic oaks, and the night passed at Los Olivos, 6 miles north of the Mission Mattei’s Tavern at Los Olivos, is one of the most comfortable country inns in California. The return should be made by the Gaviota Pass and the seaside road back to Santa Barbara. The Mission of Santa Inés (which is Spanish for Saint Agnes, whose eve gives title to Keat’s immortal poem), is sight enough to make the trip worth while—with white walls, red-tiled roofs and flowery, corridored front, in a valley rimmed about with mountains. The Mission was long abandoned and in ruins, but when the present hospitable rector took charge some 15 years ago, he began a careful restoration and with his own hands did much of the necessary labor to put it as we see it today.[100]
A POSTSCRIPT ON CLIMATE, WAYS AND MEANS.
While the climate of the Southwest is characterized by abundant sunshine and a low degree of relative humidity, it has periods of considerable moisture precipitation. In winter this takes the form of snow in the northern and central portions of New Mexico and Arizona (which lie at an elevation of 5000 feet and more above sea level). The snow, however, except upon the mountains, disappears rather rapidly under the hot sunshine of midday, so that the traveler has a fair chance to sandwich his trips between the storms. The mid-year precipitation of rain is generally during July and August, and throughout all parts of both those States it descends usually in severe electrical storms. These occur as a rule in the afternoon and pass quickly, but while they last they are apt to be very, very wet. They are the occasion of sky effects of cloud and rainbow wonderful enough to compensate for whatever discomfort the rain may cause. In most sections the summer temperatures are on the whole agreeable, but in the much lower altitudes of parts of southern Arizona and New Mexico, desert conditions largely prevail, with a degree of heat in summer that is trying to sight-seers.