EN ROUTE TO LOS ANGELES.
"Bless me, this is pleasant,
Riding on the rail!"
On the Surf Line from San Diego to Los Angeles, a seventy-mile run along
the coast, there is so much to see, admire, and think about, that the
time passes rapidly without napping or nodding. Take a chair seat on the
left of car--the ocean side--and enjoy the panoramic view from the
window: the broad expanse of the Pacific, its long curling breakers, the
seals and porpoises tumbling about in clumsy frolics, the graceful gulls
circling above them, the picturesque canons, and the flocks of birds
starting from the ground, frightened by our approach. This we watch for
more than an hour; then the scene changes, and, leaving the water, we
have glimpses of wondrous carpets of wild-flowers, the golden poppy
predominant, miles of brilliant green on either hand, peeps at the three
missions, the groves at Orange, the town of Santa Ana, and Anaheim, the
parent colony, the first of all the irrigated settlements of 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 to
know that the expelled Franciscan order has just returned to California,
and that San Luis Rey is now occupied. It is worth making the trip to
San Juan to see the old bells struck, as in former times, by a rope
attached to the clapper. They have different tones, and how eloquently
they speak to us. These missions along the coast and a line farther
inland are the only real ruins that we have in America, and must be
preserved, whether as a matter of sentiment or money, and in some way
protected from the vandals who think it jolly fun to lug off the old red
tiles, or even the stone bowl for holy water--anything they can steal.
At San Juan the plaster statues have been disgracefully mutilated by
relic-hunters and thoughtless visitors. Eyes have been picked out, noses
cut off, fingers carried away, and the altar-cloths everywhere have been
slashed at the corners.
A society has been formed to try to save them, and one learned and
enthusiastic mission lover proposes to revive the old Camino del Rey, or
King's Highway. "What could not the drive from San Diego to Sonoma be
made if the State once roused herself to make it? Planted and watered
and owned as an illustration of forestry, why should it not also as a
route of pilgrimage rank with that to Canterbury or Cologne on the
Rhine? The Franciscans have given to California a nomenclature which
connects them and us permanently with what was great in their
contemporary history, while we preserve daily upon our lips the names of
the great chiefs of their own order."
But where am I? Those mouldering walls led me into a reverie. Speaking
of "ruins" reminds me of a Frenchman who called on the poet Longfellow
in his old age and explained his visit in this way: "Sare, you 'ave no
ruins in dis country, so I 'ave come to see you."
The cactus hedge around each mission to keep the cattle in, and possibly
the hostile Indians out, must have been effective. We see now and then a
little that has survived. This makes me think of a curious bird I
noticed in my drives at San Diego, the roadrunner, classed with the
cuckoo. It has various names, the chaparral-cock, the ground-cuckoo, the
prairie-cock, paisano, and worst of all, in classic nomenclature, the
_Geococcyx californianus_.
It keeps on the ground most of the time, and can run with such swiftness
that it cannot be easily overtaken by horse and hounds. It has a tail
longer than its body, which it bears erect. It kills beetles, toads,
birds, and mice, but has a special dislike for the rattlesnake, and
often meets him and beats him in fair combat. When it finds one sleeping
or torpid it makes a circle of cactus thorns around him so he cannot
escape--for "future reference," as my driver said.
This thorny circle is akin to the lariat made of horsehair, the ends
sticking out roughly all around, with which the Indian used to encircle
himself before going to sleep, as a protection from the rattlesnake, who
could not cross it. But here we are at Los Angeles. Hear the bawling
cabbies: "This way for The Westminster!" "Hollenbeck Hotel!"