I remember the Mission Dolores as a detached settlement with a
pronounced Spanish flavor. There was one street worth mentioning, and
only one. It was lined with low-walled adobe houses, roofed with the red
curved tiles which add so much to the adobe houses that otherwise would
be far from picturesque. The adobe is a sun-baked brick; it is
mud-color; its walls look as if they were moulded of mud. The adobes
were the native California habitations. We spoke of them as adobes;
although it would probably be as correct, etymologically, to refer to
brick houses as bricks.

There were a few ramshackle hotels at the mission; for in the early days
it seemed as if everybody either boarded or took in boarders, and many
families lived for years in hotels rather than attempt to keep house in
the wilds of San Francisco. The mission was about one house deep each
side of the main street. You might have turned a corner and found
yourself face to face with the cattle in the meadow. As for the goats,
they met you at the doorway and followed you down the street like dogs.

At the top of this street stood the mission church and what few mission
buildings were left for the use of the Fathers. The church and the
grounds were the most interesting features of the place, and it was a
favorite resort of the citizens of San Francisco; yet it most likely
would not have been were the church the sole attraction. Here, in
appropriate enclosures, there were bull-fighting, bear-baiting, and
horse-racing. Many duels were fought here, and some of them were so well
advertised that they drew almost as well as a cock-fight. Cock-fighting
was a special Sunday diversion. Through the mission ran the highway to
the pleasant city of San Jose; it ran through a country unsurpassed in
beauty and fertility. Above the mission towered the mission peaks, and
about it the hillslopes were mantled with myriads of wild flowers, the
splendor and variety of which have added to the fame of California.

The mission church was never handsome; but the facade with the old bells
hanging in their niches, and the almost naive simplicity of its
architectural adornment, are extremely pleasing. It is a long, narrow,
dingy nave one enters. Its walls of adobe do not retain their coats of
whitewash for any length of time; in the rainy season they are damp and
almost clammy. The floor is of beaten earth; the Stations upon the walls
of the rudest description; the narrow windows but dimly li