Among the California Missions the southern group form a natural unit,
just as does, geographically, Southern California itself--the region
covered by the familiar California formula, "South of the Tehachapi."
It is thought that this little set of tales, extracted from the larger
work, The California Padres and Their Missions, in which Mr. Charles
F. Saunders and the writer collaborated, may be welcomed by those many
persons whose interest in Mission affairs is more or less limited to the
five here included, which are, probably, the most notable, historically
and architecturally, of the whole chain of these venerable monuments of
Franciscan zeal.