Southern
California, now a wealthy city.

The missions are always interesting. San Juan Capistrano was seriously
injured by an earthquake in 1812; the tower was shaken so severely that
it toppled over during morning mass, killing thirty of the worshippers,
the priests escaping through the sacristy. It was the latest and
costliest of the missions. "Its broken olive mill and crumbling
dove-cote, and the spacious weed-grown courts and corridors, are
pathetic witnesses to the grandeur of the plans and purposes of the
founders, and also of the rapidity with which nature effaces the noblest
works of human hands."

But San Luis Rey is in good condition, having been restored to something
of its original beauty, and recently re-dedicated. The walled
enclosures once contained fifty-six acres, six being covered by the
sacred edifice, its arched colonnades, and the cloisters, in which the
Fathers lived, surrounded by three thousand baptized savages. Mrs.
Jeanne C. Carr quotes a stage-driver with whom she talked on the box as
saying: "Ye see, ma'am, what them old padders didn't know 'bout findin'
work for their subjicks and pervidin' for the saints 'n' angels, not to
say therselves, wa'n't wuth knowin'. They carried on all kinds o'
bizness. Meat was plenty, keepin' an' vittles was to be had at all the
missions an' ranches too, jes' by settin' round. The pastures and hills
was alive with horses and cattle, an' hides an' taller was their coin.
They cured and stacked the hides, dug holes in stiff ground, an' run the
taller into 'em; it kep' sweet until a ship laid up to Capistrano, _then
that taller turned into gold_. They could load up a big ship in a single
day, they had so many Indians to help." And he proceeded to tell of his
own lucky find: "A lot of that holy taller was lost 'n' fergot, nobuddy
knows how many years. One night I went up into the grass beyant the
mission to stake out my hosses; an' when I druv the fust stake it went
way deawn, like 'twas in soft mud. I jes' yanked it up: half on 't was
kivered with grease. The evening was cool, but the day had been brilin',
an' now mebbe ye kin guess how I found my taller mine. 'Twas a leetle
mouldy on top, but the heft on 't was hard,--a reg'lar bonanzy fer a
stage-driver."

It may seem irreverent to introduce this droll fellow in sharp contrast
with the beautiful ruin, full of the most cherished memories of old
Spain, but reality often gives romance a hard jar. It is pleasant