These We Were To Have All Day, With The Privilege Of
Riding Them Down To The Beach At Night, For A Dollar, Which We Had
To Pay In Advance.
Horses are the cheapest thing in California;
the very best not being worth more than ten dollars apiece, and very
good ones being often sold for three, and four.
In taking a day's
ride, you pay for the use of the saddle, and for the labor and
trouble of catching the horses. If you bring the saddle back safe,
they care but little what becomes of the horse. Mounted on our
horses, which were spirited beasts, and which, by the way, in this
country, are always steered by pressing the contrary rein against
the neck, and not by pulling on the bit, - we started off on a fine
run over the country. The first place we went to was the old
ruinous presidio, which stands on a rising ground near the village,
which it overlooks. It is built in the form of an open square,
like all the other presidios, and was in a most ruinous state,
with the exception of one side, in which the commandant lived,
with his family. There were only two guns, one of which was spiked,
and the other had no carriage. Twelve, half clothed, and half starved
looking fellows, composed the garrison; and they, it was said, had
not a musket apiece. The small settlement lay directly below the
fort, composed of about forty dark brown looking huts, or houses,
and two larger ones, plastered, which belonged to two of the "gente
de razón." This town is not more than half as large as Monterey,
or Santa Barbara, and has little or no business. From the presidio,
we rode off in the direction of the mission, which we were told was
three miles distant. The country was rather sandy, and there was
nothing for miles which could be called a tree, but the grass grew
green and rank, and there were many bushes and thickets, and the
soil is said to be good. After a pleasant ride of a couple of miles,
we saw the white walls of the mission, and fording a small river,
we came directly before it. The mission is built of mud, or rather
of the unburnt bricks of the country, and plastered. There was
something decidedly striking in its appearance: a number of irregular
buildings, connected with one another, and disposed in the form of
a hollow square, with a church at one end, rising above the rest,
with a tower containing five belfries, in each of which hung a large
bell, and with immense rusty iron crosses at the tops. Just outside
of the buildings, and under the walls, stood twenty or thirty small
huts, built of straw and of the branches of trees, grouped together,
in which a few Indians lived, under the protection and in the service
of the mission.
Entering a gate-way, we drove into the open square, in which the
stillness of death reigned.
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