The Pala Campanile, Showing the Cactus Growing by the Side of the Cross.
The Pala Chapel and Campanile Before the Restoration.
In this earlier account he adds comment upon the treatment some of the Indians received at the hands of their superiors which would lead one to infer that the rule of the padres was one of harsh severity rather than of affection and wise discipline. Later, however, he writes more moderately, as follows:
On the inside of the main building it formed a large square, where he found at least one or two hundred young Indian girls busily employed spinning, each one with her spinning wheel, and the different apartments around were occupied with the different trades, such as carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers, tailors, most useful for the establishment. There were also weavers, busily at work weaving blankets, all apparently contented and happy in their vocation. Passing out of the square, he strolled towards the garden, where he entered and found, much to his surprise, a great variety of fruit trees—pears, apples, peaches, plums, figs, oranges and lemons, besides a large vineyard, bearing the choicest grapes.
While it is very possible the Mission of San Juan Capistrano—the next one further north—was the most imposing, architecturally, of all the California Missions in its prime, it was not allowed to stand long enough for us to know its glory, the earthquake of 1812 destroying its tower, after which time it remained in ruins. San Luis Rey suffered materially from the hands of the spoilers during the sad epoch of Secularization and when I first saw it, some thirty years ago, nearly all its outbuildings were destroyed. Yet even in its ruined condition it exercised great fascination over all who viewed it, and careful study revealed that, architecturally, it was the most perfect Mission of the whole chain. While not as solidly built as either Santa Barbara, San Carlos at Monterey or San Carlos in the Carmelo Valley, it was architecturally more perfect. Indeed it was the only Mission that combined within itself all the elements of the so-called Mission Style of architecture.
To those unfamiliar with the history of California and the Missions the question naturally arises, when they find the buildings in ruins, the Indians scattered, and all traces of the establishments' former glory gone, "Whence and Why this ruin?"
To answer fully would require more space than this brochure affords, and for further information those interested are referred to my larger work.[A] In brief it may be stated that the decline of the Missions came about through the cupidity of Mexican politicians, who deprived the padres of their temporal control, released the Indians from their parental care, committed the property of the Missions into the latter's hands and then deliberately and ruthlessly robbed them on every hand. The work of demoralizing the Indians was followed by the Americans who took possession of California soon after the Mexican act of secularization of the Missions was passed, and the days of the gold excitement which came soon after pretty nearly completed the sad work.
Hence it is only since the later growth of population in California that a desire to preserve these old Missions has arisen. Under the energetic direction of Dr. Charles F. Lummis, the Landmarks Club has done much needed work in preserving them from further ruin, and at San Luis Rey the Franciscans themselves have systematically carried on the work of restoration until, save that the Indians are gone and the outbuildings are less extensive, one might deem himself at the Mission soon after its original erection.