THE BAPTISMAL FONT.
SAN GABRIEL, FROM THE SOUTHEAST.
Most of the Californian Missions are really dead, and near that of La Purissima may still be seen the rent in the ground made by the earthquake which destroyed it. Others, like San Gabriel and San Juan Capistrano, are dragging out a moribund existence, under the care of only one or two priests, who move like melancholy phantoms through the lonely cloisters, and pray among the ruins of a noble past. The Mission of Santa Barbara, however, is in fairly good repair, and a few Franciscan Fathers still reside there and carry on a feeble imitation of their former life.
A DEGENERATE.
It is on his way to this Mission that the traveler passes the reputed residence of Ramona. There is, it is true, another structure near San Diego which, also, claims this distinction; but the ranch on the route from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara perfectly corresponds to "H.H.'s" descriptions of her heroine's home, with its adjoining brook and willows, and hills surmounted by the cross. The house is almost hidden by the trees with which a Mexican ordinarily surrounds his dwelling, and is, as usual, only one story high, with a projecting roof, forming a porch along the entire front. As we learn in "Ramona," much of the family life in those old days—sewing, visiting, and siesta-taking—went on in the open air, under the shade of the porticos which were wide and low. Here it was that Alessandro brought Felipe back to health, watching and nursing him as he slept outdoors on his rawhide bed; and we may see the arbor where the lovers met, the willows where they were surprised by Señora Moreno, and the hills on which the pious lady caused wooden crosses to be reared, that passers-by might know that some good Catholics were still left in California.
THE CROSS ON THE HILL.
