The other side contains these names in Spanish: "Our Seraphic Father, Francis of Asissi. Saint Louis, King. Saint Clare, Saint Eulalia. Our Light. Cervantes fecit nos—Cervantes made us."
The smaller bell, in the upper embrasure, bears the inscription: "Sancta Maria ora pro nobis"—Holy Mary, pray for us.
The Campanile stands just within the cemetery wall. Originally it appeared to rest upon a base of well-worn granite boulders, brought up from the river bed, and cemented together. The revealing and destroying storm of 1916 showed that these boulders were but a covering for a mere adobe base, which—as evidenced by its standing for practically a whole century—its builders deemed secure enough against all storms and strong enough to sustain the weight of the superstructure. Resting upon this base which was 15 feet high, was the two-storied tower, the upper story terraced, as it were, upon the lower, and smaller in size, as are or were the domes of the Campaniles of Santa Barbara, San Luis Rey, San Buenaventura and Santa Cruz. But at Pala there were no domes. The wall was pierced and each story arched, and below each arch hung a bell. The apex of the tower was in the curved pediment style so familiar to all students of Mission architecture, and was crowned with a cross. By the side of this cross there grew a cactus, or prickly pear. Though suspended in mid-air where it could receive no care, it has flourished ever since the American visitor has known it, and my ancient Indian friends tell me it has been there ever since the tower was built. This assertion may be the only authority for the statement made by one writer that:
One morning just about a century ago, a monk fastened a cross in the still soft adobe on the top of the bell tower and at the foot of the cross he planted a cactus as a token that the cross would conquer the wilderness. From that day to this this cactus has rested its spiny side against that cross, and together—the one the hope and the inspiration of the ages, and the other a savage among the scant bloom of the desert—they have calmly surveyed the labor, the opulence, the decline, and the ruin of a hundred years.
One writer sweetly says of it:
It is rooted in a crack of the adobe tower, close to the spot where the Christian symbol is fixed, and seemed, I thought, to typify how little of material substance is needed by the soul that dwells always at the foot of the cross.
Another story has it that when Padre Peyri ordered the cross placed, it was of green oak from the Palomar mountains. Naturally, the birds came and perched on it, and probably nested at its foot, using mud for that purpose. In this soft mud a chance seed took lodgment and grew.
Be this as it may the birds have always frequented it since I have known it, some of them even nesting in the thorny cactus slabs. On one visit I found a tiny cactus wren bringing up its brood there, while on another occasion I could have sworn it was a mocking-bird, for it poured out such a flood of melody as only a mocking-bird could, but whether the nest there belonged to the glorious songster, or to some other feathered creature, I could not watch long enough to tell.
Other birds too, have utilized this tower from which to launch forth their symphonies and concertos. In the early mornings of several of my visits, I have gone out and sat, perfectly entranced, at the rich torrents of exquisite and independent melody each bird poured forth in prodigal exuberance, and yet which all combined in one chorus of sweetness and joy as must have thrilled the priestly builder, if, today, from his heavenly home he be able to look down upon the work of his hands.
It must not be forgotten, in our admiration for the separate-standing Campanile of Pala, and the general belief that it is the only example in the world, that others of the Franciscan Missions of California practically have the same architectural feature. While the well-known campanile of the Mission San Gabriel is not, in strict fact, a separate standing one, the bell-tower itself is merely an extension of the mission wall and practically stands alone. The same method of construction is followed at Mission Santa Inés. The fachada of the church is extended, to the right, as a wall, which is simply a detached belfry. And, as is well known, the campanile of San Juan Capistrano, erected after the fall of the bell-tower of the grand church in the earthquake of 1812, is a mere wall, closing up a passage between two buildings, with pierced apertures in which the bells are hung.