"Are you just on a sightseeing trip?" We admitted this to be our prime object and he quickly rejoined,
"Then there ain't no use in your goin' to see the mission, for there ain't nothin' to see. Besides, the road is mighty bad—all cut up just now"—but seeing we were not satisfied, he added,
"It's just across the river yonder; you'll have to go back to the bridge and turn to the right."
We thanked him and acted on his directions, and we soon found he was right enough—about the road, at least. It had recently been ploughed, leaving a long stretch of powdery dust, axle-deep. We plunged into it, rolling from one side to the other and making exceedingly slow progress. At no time on our tour did it seem more likely that a team of horses would have to be "commandeered," but by keeping at it—had we stopped a single instant we could never have started on our own power—we came through at last, and seeing nothing of the ruins inquired of some men at a pumping station.
"Just over the hill," they replied; but we stopped to see one of the California irrigation wells, and it was something of a spectacle to behold a huge centrifugal pump pouring out six thousand gallons of crystal-clear water every minute.
"She will keep up that gait for four months at a time," said one of the workmen, "and there are several bigger wells in the neighborhood; there surely must be something of a lake under our feet."
The effect of these wells was shown in the green fields, which contrasted with the brown, withered country through which we had been passing.
Our friend the blacksmith was right again when he said that the mission "wasn't worth seein'"—just as a spectacle removed from any sentiment it would never repay for the strenuous plunge through the sandy stretch. But "Our Lady of the Solitude" means something more than a few crumbling bits of adobe wall; here is the same human interest and romance that clusters around beautiful Capistrano or delightful Santa Barbara. There is not enough left to give any idea of the architectural or general plan of the buildings; there is even doubt if some of the buildings were not erected after the American occupation. The material was adobe and this does not appear to have been protected by stucco or cement; as a consequence the ruin is complete and in a few years more only heaps of yellow clay will mark the site of the mission. The principal ruins are of the church, which the Sobranes family of Soledad claim was erected by their grandfather in 1850. He was baptized and married in the original church and when this fell to ruin he built the structure whose remains we see to-day. If this claim be true, there is indeed little left of the original mission.
The site is a superb one. The mission stood on one of the foothills which overlook the wide vale of the Salinas, stretching away to the rugged blue ranges of the Sierras. The river may be seen as a gleaming silver thread in the wide ribbon of yellow sand through which it courses, fringed now and then by green shrubs and trees. Across the river is the village of Soledad and the wheatfields beyond are dotted with ranch-houses at wide intervals. It was a fine, invigorating day; the wind, which whiffed sand into our faces all the afternoon, had subsided; a soft, somnolent haze had settled over the landscape; and the low, declining sun reminded us that we must be moving if we were to reach Monterey before dark.
There is not much of history connected with the pitiful relics we were leaving behind. The records belonging to Our Lady of the Solitude have perished with her earthen walls and we could learn only the general details of her story. Founded in 1791 by Father Lasuen, the mission reached its zenith in 1805, when there were seven hundred and twenty-seven neophytes under its control. They possessed large numbers of live stock and had built an extensive irrigating system, traces of which may still be seen. Soledad faded away even more rapidly than its contemporaries following the Mexican confiscation. Six years after this event, which occurred in 1835, only seventy Indians remained, and ten years later the property was sold for eight hundred dollars to the Sobranes, who claim to have built the church. Our Lady of the Solitude is quite past any restoration and it is not likely that a new building will ever be erected on the spot. It will soon take its place with Santa Cruz and San Rafael, which have totally disappeared.