Chapter XVII: Lake Tahoe 358 (6)

We are late in leaving Del Mar—we always were on each of our several visits. But the lure of the road on such a glorious day is too strong for even the attractions of Del Mar and its pleasant inn. The purr of the motor and the long white road winding down to the seashore and disappearing in the distant hills is a combination to rouse all the wanderlust in our natures and waving adieu to our kindly hosts we are on the King's Highway again. Occasionally snowy clouds float lazily through the deep azure sky, serving to give variation to the scene; they darken the sun at intervals and the lapis-lazuli blue of the ocean changes to dull silver for a moment. Sunshine and shadow chase each other over the low green hills to the landward and brighten or obscure the distant mountain ranges. Beyond Encinitas, about ten miles from Del Mar, the road follows a magnificent beach. Here the waves have piled up a long ridge of rounded stones, from which a wide stretch of hard sand slopes down to the sea. It is sprinkled with millions of golden particles, giving a peculiarly brilliant effect in the sunlight which may have roused the hopes of more than one early adventurer in his search for El Dorado. The smooth, shining sand tempts us to leave the car by the road to wander up and down the beach, gathering shells and seaweed or watching the long white line of waves creep landward and recede in glittering ripples. Each comes nearer and nearer until one flings its white spray over us and drives us toward the great cobblestone dike stretching along the shore. Near this are myriads of yellow and pink sand-flowers with queer waxen leaves and delicate silken petals. Some day, no doubt, as California's millions increase, this beautiful beach will become a popular resort.

A few miles beyond this we pause in a sheltered canyon and spread our noonday lunch under a vast sprawling sycamore—if I should make a guess at its dimensions I might lay myself open to the charge of exaggeration, which some insinuate is the universal California failing. Out of Oceanside the road soon takes to the highlands again and runs through fields of yellow mustard and purple-pink wild radish blossoms—sad pests, they tell us, for all their glorious color.

Oceanside is a quiet little place with a large hotel down towards the beach, and her El Camino Real has departed from its olden course, for the mission of San Luis lies some four miles inland. Just out of the village we descend a winding grade into a wide green valley, and far to one side under a sheltering hill we catch the gleam of whitewashed walls surmounted by the characteristic mission tower. We soon draw up in front of the building, which has lately been restored—much to its artistic detriment, we are told. This is an almost inevitable result of restoration, it is true, but without restoration it would be impossible to preserve the crumbling fragments of these old adobe structures. San Luis Rey is considered by many good authorities to have been the finest of all the missions in its palmy days—a claim well borne out by the description of Dahant Cilly, a French traveler who visited it in 1827, when it was in the height of its glory. He wrote:

"At last we turned inland and after a jaunt of an hour and a half we found before us, on a piece of rising ground, the superb buildings of Mission San Luis Rey, whose glittering whiteness was flashed back to us by the first rays of the day. At that distance and in the still uncertain light of dawn, this edifice, of a very beautiful model, supported upon its numerous pillars, had the aspect of a palace. The architectural faults can not be grasped at this distance, and the eye is attracted only to the elegant mass of this beautiful structure.... Instinctively I stopped my horse to gaze alone, for a few minutes, on the beauty of the sight.

"This building forms a large square of five hundred feet on each side. The main facade is a long peristyle borne on thirty-two square pillars supporting round arches. The edifice is composed, indeed, of only a ground-floor, but its elevation, of fine proportions, gives it as much grace as nobleness. It is covered with a tile roof, flattened, around which reaches, as much without as within the square, a terrace with an elegant balustrade which stimulates still more the height. Within is seen a large court, neat and levelled, around which pillars and arches similar to those of the peristyle support a long cloister, by which one communicates with all the dependencies of the mission."

We see before us now a huge, dormitory-like building adjoining the ancient church, which is also undergoing repair and restoration—an adobe structure with a beautiful tower which is about the only exterior remnant of the mission's ancient glory. A brown-robed, bare-footed Mexican priest responds to the bell and offers to guide us about the building. He conducts us to the church—a long, narrow apartment with high beamed ceiling, resplendent in the bright colors of the ancient decorations recently restored. The beautiful mortuary chapel—the finest in the whole chain of missions—was still in ruins when we first visited San Luis Rey, but two years later we found it restored in solid concrete. Its artistic beauty was sadly impaired by the improvement, but the preservation of the chapel is assured. We are glad, though, that we saw it when the crumbling remnants were covered with grasses and wall-flowers, and it was still redolent of memories of mission days. The quaint old cross in the cemetery has undergone like treatment, its rough brick foundation having been smoothly coated with cement and decorated with bright red stripes at the corners. About the only part of San Luis still in its original state, save for the destructive effect of time and weather, are the arches of the ancient cloisters, which stand in the enclosure to the rear of the dormitory and keep alive the sentiment always awakened by such memorials.

Our guide told us something of life at the present time in the mission, which is now a training school for monks of the Franciscan order. There are eight brothers in residence who do all the work, each one having some particular trade, our guide being the tailor. They did much of the work of restoration, though, of course, some assistants had to be hired, mainly from the sixty parishioners of the church, most of whom are Indians. For his courtesy we offered him a gratuity, but he declined.

"The brothers must not receive gifts," he said. "I will take you to Father O'Keefe if you wish to give anything to the work."

And so we met the kindly old Irishman who has done so much for the restoration of the California missions. He was of portly stature, unshaven for several days and clad in the brown robes of his order. He came to San Luis Rey in 1902 from Santa Barbara and all the restoration had been done since then. He had raised and expended more than twenty thousand dollars in the work, besides the labor of the monks themselves, who receive no pay.

"I will accept your contribution," said Father O'Keefe, "for this work; the Franciscan fathers take nothing for themselves; and will you write your name in our visitors' book?" I did as requested and Father O'Keefe declared, "That name looks good anywhere—it has a genuine flavor of the Ould Sod about it."

And we fell to talking of the Emerald Isle, which the kindly old priest never expected to see again. He was greatly interested when he learned that we had made a recent motor tour through the hills and vales of the Ould Countrie, which he still loves as a loyal son. He bade us adieu and before departing we paused on the cloistered porch to admire the beauty of the scene before us. The mission overlooks a pleasant green vale shut in on every hand by low hills, through which we caught a fleeting glimpse of the sea. It was a prosperous scene—as it no doubt was in the days of old—with ranch-houses, cattle, and cultivated fields—another instance of the unerring eye of the early monk in choosing a site for his mission home.

San Luis Rey was one of the later foundations, dating from June 13, 1798. From the very start the mission was prosperous. In 1800 there were three hundred and thirty-seven neophytes, and twenty-six years later it had reached its zenith with twenty-eight hundred and sixty-nine. It had then great holdings of live stock and harvested a crop of over twelve thousand bushels of grain. From this time it began to decline and at its secularization in 1834 its net worth was but a fraction of its former wealth. So indignant were the Indians over the decree that, it is recorded, they slaughtered twenty thousand head of cattle to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Mexicans. In 1843 the property was restored to the church, but its spoilation had been accomplished and barely four hundred poverty-stricken Indians remained. In 1847 General Fremont took possession and later the building and site were returned to the church.

Beyond Oceanside there was much fine scenery along the road and everything was at its best on this glorious May afternoon. It was a clear, lucent day, with only a slight purplish haze in the far distance. The sea was as transcendently beautiful as this warm soft southern sea can be in its loveliest mood—a deep, dark, solid blue flecked with purple seaweed and shading to pale green near the shore, upon which the long white line of the breakers swept incessantly. At times we ran at the foot of desert hills covered with cacti and scrub cedars, but relieved from monotony by the orange flame of the poppies. Again we passed through wide meadows starred with wild flowers—the delicate daturas, dahlias, poppies, and a hundred others spangled the hillsides everywhere. Along the beaches gleamed the pink verbenas and yellow sand-flowers. Birds were numerous; the clear, melodious note of the meadow lark and the warble of the mocking bird were heard on every hand. In places we ran along the shore on a headland high above the sea and again we dropped down to a sandy beach. Much of the road was dusty, rough, and poor—sand and adobe that must have been well-nigh impassable in wet weather. Need I say that it has been improved since the new state highway follows the course of El Camino Real south of Los Angeles?

After closely following the beach for many miles the road rounds a huge cliff and turns sharply inland—we saw no more of the ocean. Dana mentions the coast just above the point in "Two Years Before the Mast," as a spot where the ship's people landed to trade with the natives, whose merchandise consisted chiefly of skins and furs. Climbing to the summit of a pass through the hills, we caught a distant glimpse of the crumbling walls and red tiles of another of the old-time retreats of the fathers of St. Francis.

I find in my "Log-Book of a Motor Car," set down on the spot, "Capistrano is really the most picturesque of all the missions we have seen"—a judgment which I am still willing to let stand after having visited every link in the ancient chain. Perhaps this impression is partly due to the fact that the restorer's hand has so far dealt lightly with San Juan Mission and partly because the town of Capistrano itself is so redolent of ancient California. Indeed, this scattered hamlet must have looked very much the same fifty years ago as it does to-day, and as yet it shows little sign of waking from its somnolence and catching step with the rapid march of California's progress. The population is mostly Mexican and half-breed—a dreaming, easy-going community that seems quite content with its humdrum life and obvious poverty. There is a good-sized wooden hotel which in numerous roadside signs makes an earnest bid for the patronage of motorists, and looks as if it might be fairly comfortable for a brief sojourn.

To see Capistrano, the motor which takes you away when you are ready to go, is the means par excellence. The charm of the place is the mission, which you can see to your satisfaction in an hour or two, though you will doubtless desire to come again. It stands at the edge of the village in the luxuriant green valley, guarded by the encircling hills so omnipresent in California. Someone has styled it the Melrose Abbey of the west, but it is quite as different from Melrose Abbey as California is unlike Scotland. We enter the grounds and look about some time for a guide, but find no one save a dark-eyed slip of a girl in a broad sombrero, placing flowers on the altar of the diminutive chapel. She leads us to the quarters of the padre and we hear him chanting a Latin prayer as we approach. He is a tall, dark, ascetic-looking young fellow, who greets us warmly and asks us to step into his study until he is ready to go with us. It is a bare, uncomfortable-looking room, which from the outside we would never have suspected to be occupied. He is Father St. John O'Sullivan, a young Kentuckian of Irish descent and one can soon see that he is at San Juan Capistrano because his heart is in his work. He tells us little of the story of the mission, for he has written a booklet covering that—which we gladly purchase, and also a number of the beautiful photographs which he himself has taken. Like every other mission priest whom we met, his heart is set on the restoration and preservation of his charge and every dollar that he gets by contribution or the sale of his pictures or souvenirs is hoarded for that purpose.

And who can look about the beautiful ruin and not be impressed that his purpose is a worthy one? For here, beyond question, was one of the largest establishments and the finest church of all the twenty-one missions of California. Our pictures must be the best description of the ruin—but they can give little idea of the impressive ensemble. The inner court was surrounded by arched cloisters, part of which still remain, though time-stained to a mellow brown and covered with vines and roses. A tiny garden now relieves the wide waste of the ancient enclosure, fragments of whose walls are still to be seen. The original tiles still cover the roof, giving that rich color combination of dull reds, silver-grays, and moss-greens which one seldom sees elsewhere. The ruins of the great church are the most impressive and melancholy portion—doubly so when one learns that the earthquake of 1812 tumbled the seven stone domes of the roof upon the congregation while at mass, crushing out forty lives. Traces of the carvings and decorations still remain which show that in rude artistic touches Capistrano church surpassed all its compeers. A little nondescript campanile with four bells remains, whose inscriptions and history are given in Father O'Sullivan's "Little Chapters." Here, also, he gives one or two pleasing traditions of the bells, which are worth repeating here:

"Of the mission bells there are many traditions known to all the older people of San Juan. One of these relates to the good old padre, Fray Jose Zalvidea. Of all the mission padres, he more than the others, still survives in the living memory of the people and his name is the 'open sesame' to the treasure caves of local tradition.

"Adhering to the ancient custom of his brethren, he always traveled afoot on his journeys to other missions, or on calls to the sick. Once while returning from a visit to a rancheria in the north, the story runs, he was overtaken near El Toro, some twelve miles away, by the other padre of the mission, who rode in a carreta drawn by oxen. On being invited to get in and ride, he refused and answered pleasantly.

"'Never mind, my brother, I shall arrive at the mission before you to ring the Angelus.'

"The other father, respecting Padre Jose's desire to proceed afoot, did not urge him further, but continued on his way in the carreta.

"Now in those days El Camino Real came into San Juan from the north, not as it does now, along the level side of the Trabuco Valley, but some rods to the east, over the rolling breasts of the lomas. From the mission patio one may still see the depression in the hill-top to the northwest of the mission, where the roadway came over the swelling ground there, and gave the weary traveler from the north a first full view of the mission. When the father in the carreta reached this point on the King's Highway, it was just the hour for the Angelus, and promptly on the moment the bells rang out the three-fold call to prayer. Wondering who could have rung the Angelus in the absence of both fathers, he hastened forward and found that Father Zalvidea, true to his word, had reached the mission before him; but how he did so to this day remains a mystery.

"Another of the traditions is as follows: There lived with her parents near the mission an Indian maid named Matilda, who was very gentle and devout and who loved to care for the sanctuary and to keep fresh flowers upon the altars. She took sick, however, and died just at the break of day. Immediately, in order to announce her departure, the four bells all began of their own accord, or rather, by the hands of angels, to ring together—not merely the solemn tolling of the larger ones for an adult nor the joyful jingling of the two smaller ones for a child, but a mingling of the two, to proclaim both the years of her age and the innocence of her life. Some say it was not the sound of the mission bells at all that was heard ringing down the little valley at dawn, but the bells in heaven which rang out a welcome to her pure soul upon its entrance into the company of the angels."

This church was built of hewn stone and lime mortar, though most of the other buildings are of adobe.

Capistrano has many interesting relics. There are several statues, including one of San Juan Capistrano in military-religious habit, and of the Blessed Virgin. In the library are numerous illuminated books done by the old-time monks, who always ended their work with a flamboyant "Laus Deo." There are numerous old paintings of doubtful value and several beautiful silver candlesticks.

The story of the mission is soon told, for it was very much like that of every other. It was founded in November, 1776, Father Serra himself taking part in the ceremonies. Ten years later there were five hundred and forty-four Indians under the padres, who had made good progress in the cruder arts and manufactures as well as agriculture. The beautiful church was consecrated with great ceremony in 1806 and was destroyed just six years later. It was the first of all to be "secularized." "The administration of the mission," writes Father O'Sullivan, "passed from the fathers into the hands of salaried state officials and it was only a short time until the lands and even the buildings themselves were sold off and the Indians sent adrift. Some years later, 1862, smallpox appeared among them and almost entirely wiped them out of existence, so that to-day not half a dozen San Juaneros remain in the vicinity of the mission." Even this pitiful remnant has disappeared since the foregoing words were written. On our last visit, Father O'Sullivan told us that on that very day he had buried the last descendant of the once numerous San Juan Mission Indians. "Surely," said he, "the day marks the end of an era in the history of San Juan Capistrano Mission, since it witnesses the utter extinction of the race of people for whose welfare this mission came into existence."

It was a lowering evening as we left after our first visit. The sky had become overcast by a dark cloud rolling in from the sea and raindrops began to patter on the ruin about us. "I am sorry to have the weather interfere with your pleasure trip," said Father O'Sullivan, "but I know that you yourselves would welcome the rain if you understood how badly it is needed here." And so we cheerfully splashed over the sixty miles of wet roads, reaching Los Angeles by lamplight.

We made other pilgrimages to San Juan Capistrano under more favorable weather conditions, for the road is a lovely one. I have already told of a trip through the charming country to Santa Ana through the orange, lemon, and walnut groves that crowd up to the road much of the way. Beyond Santa Ana there are fewer fruit trees; here grain fields and huge tracts of lima beans predominate. The latter are a Southern California staple, and it was some time before we learned what they were planting with wheeled seeders the latter part of May. The beans usually mature without rain or irrigation—a crop that seldom fails. The country in the main is flat and uninteresting between Santa Ana and Capistrano, but there is always the joy and inspiration of the distant mountains. On one shimmering forenoon we saw a remarkable mirage in this vicinity—the semblance of a huge lake with trees and green rushes appearing in the distance. It receded as we advanced and finally faded away. Its startling distinctness forcibly recalled the stories we had read of travelers being deceived and tormented by this strange apparition in waterless deserts.

IX

SANTA BARBARA

San Gabriel and San Fernando we had already visited in our rambles out of Los Angeles. The next link in the chain is Ventura, seventy-two miles to the north. From there we planned to follow El Camino Real beyond the Golden Gate to Sonoma, where San Francisco de Asis, the last and remotest of all, passed its short existence—and it proved in all a journey of nearly two thousand miles before we returned to the City of the Angels. A day or two was spent in preparation, studying our maps, packing our trunks, and tuning up the car for the rough roads and stiff grades that it must soon encounter. We were in high anticipation of a glorious trip, for had we not already felt the lure of the open road in California?—and when an old-time friend and his charming wife accepted our invitation to accompany us, our cup of happiness was full.

It is not necessary to say that it was a beautiful day when we finally set out; all California days are beautiful after the first of May and call for no special remark. Leaving Hollywood, with its gorgeous banks of bloom, we crossed over Cahuenga Pass into San Fernando Valley. Of this I have written elsewhere, but it looked even better than when we visited it last; the barley fields were maturing and the olive and apricot groves promised a generous crop. Along the road the roses were in bloom and here and there new houses were going up. Lankershim and Van Nuys are clean, modern towns joined by the splendid new boulevard and show many signs of making good the numerous sweeping claims which they advertise on billboards near at hand. Beyond Calabasas we entered the hills and pursued a winding course through a maze of wooded canyons. On either hand were magnificent oaks, which often overarched the road. Under one of the noblest of these—four or five feet in diameter, with a spread of perhaps one hundred and fifty feet—we paused for our noonday lunch, while the birds among the branches furnished a concert for our benefit. This hill country was but thinly populated and the little ranches which we occasionally passed had anything but a prosperous look. It has shown a marked improvement in many ways since the completion of the new state highway, work on which began shortly after the time of which I write.

The long easy loops of the Canejo Pass led us from the hills to the beautiful Santa Clara Valley, affording an unrivalled view as we descended. This grade is four miles long and, while not very steep at any point, is dangerous because of its many turns and precipitous sides, which in places drop almost sheer for hundreds of feet. A notice at the top restricts speed to four miles per hour, which, if obeyed, would require just an hour for the descent—an example of the ridiculous extremes of many of the "speed limits." A Ventura garage man told me that a few years ago a driver made a wager that he could "do the Canejo" at thirty miles an hour—a piece of folly that resulted in his death as well as that of a companion who was riding with him. We ourselves had ocular demonstration that the descent might be dangerous, for we saw parts of a wrecked car near the middle of the grade and also the tackle used for hauling it up the steep bank down which it had tumbled. The Canejo has since been paved and the grades and sharp turns so greatly reduced that one may do twenty-five miles per hour with far less risk than twelve under the old conditions.

In the valley the road was straight and level for many miles and bordered much of the way by giant eucalyptus trees. The eucalyptus, so common in Southern California, is a wonderfully quick grower and serves some very useful purposes, especially for piles in sea water, since the teredo will not attack it. On either side of the road were vast fields of lima beans; one tract, we were told, comprising more than four thousand acres. Here again we saw a distant mirage—waves of the sea apparently sweeping over the low, level ground before us. We soon came in sight of the ocean and caught a glimpse of Oxnard—the beet-sugar town—a few miles off the main road.

There are two alternate routes which every tourist should take should he make subsequent trips between Ventura and Los Angeles. One of these follows the San Fernando Boulevard to San Fernando town. Here one takes the road past the old mission—about a mile from the town—and leaves the valley a few miles farther through the Santa Susana Pass over a moderate grade—practically the only unimproved section of this road. The highway continues through the wayside hamlets of Simi, Moorpark and Saticoy, running through a well-improved and fertile valley and joining the state road a few miles south of Ventura.

The other route follows the San Fernando Boulevard through Newhall Tunnel past Saugus to Castaic, where it branches to the left. It takes us through the fine fruit-growing and farming country of the Santa Clara Valley and the well-improved towns of Fillmore and Santa Paula. Near Camulos Station on the S. P. R. R. is the famous old Spanish ranch house of the same name which served Helen Hunt Jackson as the prototype of the early home of Ramona. It is said to be the best example extant in Southern California of the hospitable home of the old-time Spanish grandee and one may read a very accurate description of it in Mrs. Jackson's novel. It was formerly freely shown to tourists, but frequent acts of vandalism led the owner to close the house to practically all comers.

The Santa Clara Valley road is now all improved and is bordered with some of the finest fruit ranches in Southern California. It has been very interesting to the writer to note how the improvement of the highways to which I have just referred has been followed by the improvement of the country and villages through which they pass. We made our first runs through these valleys when there was little but sandy trails to guide us and our impression of the towns and ranches was far from favorable. No stronger argument could be made in favor of highway improvement than to cite the rapid strides made in these valleys immediately following the coming of better roads.

Our first impression of Ventura, with its broad streets and flower-girded cottages, was wholly favorable, nor have we any occasion to alter it after several visits. It is a quiet, prosperous town of over four thousand people according to the census—which rapidly becomes inaccurate in California—and depends mostly on the productive country about it, though it is gaining some fame as a resort. The new county courthouse, a white stone palace fronting the sea from the hillside above the town, is of classic design and cost, we were told, a quarter of a million dollars. It would be an ornament to a city ten times the size of Ventura and is a fine illustration of the civic pride of these California communities. The situation of the town is charming indeed—on a slight rise overlooking the shimmering summer sea and just below a range of picturesque hills.

The chief historic attraction is the old mission of San Buenaventura, which gives its name to the town and which was founded by Father Serra himself in 1782. It reached the zenith of prosperity in 1816, when the neophytes numbered thirteen hundred and thirty. The result of secularization here was the same as elsewhere: the property was confiscated and the Indians scattered. In 1843 it was restored to the padres, who eked out a moderate living until the American occupation.

All the buildings of the mission have disappeared except the church, which lately was restored and renovated quite out of its ancient self. The interior is now that of a rather gaudy Catholic chapel and most of the relics of early days have been lost. It is situated in the midst of the town and the priest's house and garden adjoin it. In the latter is a fig tree which has survived since the mission days. Taken altogether, San Buenaventura is one of the most modernized and least interesting of the entire chain. Its redeeming feature is the beautiful bell-tower, though the old-time bells are gone. The church is now in daily use and had a great display of wooden figures and lighted candles when we saw it.

Leaving the town we took the new Rincon "cut off" road following the coast to Santa Barbara and avoiding the Casitas Pass—long a terror to motorists. We took the Casitas route on another occasion and while the road was narrow, rough and steep in places, with many sharp turns, we have done so many worse mountain trails since that the recollection is not very disquieting. Just across the river we passed through a beautiful wooded park, the gift of a public-spirited citizen now deceased. Beyond this we began the ascent of the first hill range—East Casitas—which is rather the steeper of the two. But all the disadvantages of the road are atoned for by the shady nooks, the wild flowers and the magnificent outlooks from frequent vantage points, especially from the eastern summit. Here one looks for miles over wooded hills abloom with the pale lavender of the wild lilac and fading away, range after range, into the blue and purple haze of the distance. West Casitas is practically a repetition of East so far as the climb and descent are concerned; in all there were about seven miles of moderately heavy grades before we came into the level roads through the walnut and lemon groves on the western side. We agreed that Casitas Pass was well worth doing once or twice, but generally the Rincon road is to be preferred.

The coast road was opened in the summer of 1912, and was made possible by the construction of more than a mile of plank causeway around cliffs jutting into the sea and over inlets too deep to fill. The county of Ventura contributed fifty thousand dollars to the work and an equal amount was raised by subscription. It closely follows the shore for the whole distance and is about nine miles shorter than the mountain route. It was quite unimproved at the time we first traversed it, and really rougher than the Casitas road.

The Rincon Route, as it is called, has since been paved and now carries practically all traffic between Ventura and Santa Barbara. It affords a glorious drive along a sea of marvelous light and color and the long shelving boulder-strewn beach is a popular camping and play ground. This route may lack the thrills and rugged scenery of the Casitas Pass road, but its smooth level stretches appeal to the average motorist and the usually bad condition of the Casitas is another deterrent to its frequent use.

Both routes converge at Carpinteria, about twelve miles south of Santa Barbara. This little village has two distinct settlements. The site of the old Spanish settlement was visited by the Monterey expedition as early as 1769 and was named "Carpinteria"—carpenter's shop—because some Indians were building a canoe at the spot. The newer American community is more thriving and up-to-date.

A little to the northwest of the village is a monster grapevine famed throughout the section as the Titan of its class. It is near a farmhouse just off the main road and we turned in to view it. The enormous trunk is ten feet in girth and the vines cover a trellis one hundred feet square. Its maximum crop, said the farmer, was fourteen tons a few years ago—enough to make a big carload. One single cluster, of which he showed us a photograph, weighed no less than twelve pounds. The average yearly crop is ten to fifteen tons. Legend has it that it was first planted in 1809, in which case it would be a little more than a centenarian. It is of the mission variety and shows no signs of decay. A comparison of the trunk with the old man shown in our picture should substantiate at least one "tall California story."

A year or two later we paused to view it again, only to find the dead trunk remaining as a sad witness of its former glory. The immense crop of fruit that it had borne the previous year had so sapped its vitality that it withered and died.

At Summerland, a few miles farther, is the curious phenomenon of large oil derricks standing in the ocean. Here are prolific oil wells beneath the water and the oil gives the surface an opalescent appearance for some distance from the shore. The place was originally founded as a spiritualist colony, but for lack of the promotive genius of a Madame Tingley, it never throve. Possibly the creaking oil pumps and pungent odors of the vicinity had something to do with the disappearance of mediums and their ghostly visitants.

On reaching Santa Barbara we decided on the new Arlington Hotel, an imposing structure of solid concrete and dark red brick, the design following mission lines generally. The towers are beautiful copies of those of the Santa Barbara Mission and the roof is of dark red tiling modeled after the antique pattern of the padres. The plainness of the mission, while carried throughout, is everywhere combined with elegance and comfort. The interior of the public rooms is decidedly unique, the finish being dark brown brick and cement, without wood trimming of any kind. Our rooms were furnished plainly but comfortably; the doors were of undressed lumber stained dark brown and furnished with heavy wrought-iron hinges, latches and locks. In such a land of plenty and variety of food products as California, it is not strange that the better hotels are famous for their "cuisine," as the handbooks style it. The Arlington is no exception to the rule, and the quiet and attentive young waitresses add to the attractiveness of the dining-room.

The first query of the stranger in Santa Barbara is for the mission and no sooner had we removed the stains of travel—and they are plentiful when you motor over the dusty roads of California—and arrayed ourselves in fresh raiment than we, too, sought the famous shrine. An electric car leads almost to its door; or, one will find the walk of a mile a pleasant variation after several hours on the roads.

You have the impression of being familiar with Santa Barbara Mission even before you have seen it, for I doubt if there is any other object in California that has been photographed and illustrated in greater variety. Its position is a superb one, on a hillside looking down on the town and fronting the glorious channel. From its tower balconies you may have one of the finest views to be seen in a land of magnificent views and you can not but admire the wisdom of the old padres in selecting the site when Santa Barbara was nothing but a collection of Indian hovels. Directly in front of the mission is the ancient fountain and below it a huge tank in which the natives washed their clothes—a practice to which they were little addicted before the padres came.

Entering the heavy oaken doors, we found system here for handling the troops of tourists who come almost daily; the guide had just gone with a party and we must wait his return. In the meanwhile we found plenty to interest us, for there were many old paintings, books, and other objects on exhibit. Our guide soon arrived—a spare-looking old priest who spoke with a German accent; he was very courteous and kindly, but not so communicative as we might wish a guide to be in such a place. He led us first to the church, a huge apartment forty by one hundred and sixty-five feet, gaudily painted in Indian designs. It is built of stone with enormously heavy walls—six feet thick—supported by buttresses nine feet square. Its predecessor was destroyed by an earthquake and it would seem that in the new structure the fathers strove to guard against a second disaster of the kind. The interior had been modernized and the decorations reproduce as nearly as possible the original Indian designs. There are numerous carved figures and paintings brought from Spain and Mexico in an early day. One of the paintings is a remarkable antique, representing the Trinity by three figures, each the exact counterpart of the other. A stairway leads to one of the towers and as we ascended we noted the solidity of the construction, concrete and stone being the only materials employed. We were shown the mission bells, two of which are one hundred years old, suspended by rawhide thongs from the beams on the roof. There is a magnificent view from the tower, covering the town and a wide scope of country and extending seaward to the islands beyond the channel. Descending, we were conducted into the cemetery garden where, the guide told us, were buried no less than four thousand Indians during mission days. It is a peaceful spot now, beautiful with flowers and shrubbery and affording a quiet retreat for the monks. There are many rare trees and shrubs and we were especially interested in a giant datura as old, perhaps, as the cemetery. In one corner is a mausoleum where the fathers have been buried since the founding of the mission. Some thirty have been laid to rest here and only five crypts remained unoccupied at the time of our visit.

In the court on the opposite side of the church is the garden which, according to an ancient rule, no woman may enter save the "reigning queen," though after the American conquest this was extended to include the wife of the President, and the priest told us with pride that Mrs. Benjamin Harrison availed herself of the privilege. By a somewhat wide interpretation of the "reigning queen" rule, Princess Louise, wife of the Governor-General of Canada, was also admitted once upon a time. We recall a similar rule in Durham Cathedral and it seems that the monks of the Old World and New did not always feel proof against feminine charms. One of the old Franciscan fathers, however, took quite a different view of the matter.

"It seems," he said, "that since our Mother Eve, through her fatal curiosity brought upon her daughters the curse of expulsion from Eden, the Franciscan order does not subject any other woman to similar temptation."

While not permitted to enter the garden ourselves, we were able to get a very satisfactory "bird's-eye" view of it from the tower balcony.

The mission now is a Franciscan college for monks and at the time of our visit there were forty-nine brothers in all. It is a center of Catholic learning in California, having a valuable library which contains most of the sources of mission history. Among these Father Zephyrin Engelhardt labors daily upon his great work on "The Franciscan Missions of California." Of this he has already published three large volumes which are recognized as a valuable contribution to American history, and a fourth is soon to follow. There are also illuminated missals from Spain and Old Mexico and other rare volumes of considerable value.

The fathers and their students do all the work necessary to keep up their establishment and its gardens. Each one learns some particular trade or work and does not shrink from the hardest physical labor. The buildings and grounds are being improved and beautified each year and Santa Barbara seems to be the one mission where ideal conditions prevail for the care of the property and the preservation of the traditions of early days. Very appropriately it still remains in charge of the Franciscans, a rather uncommon distinction shared with San Luis Rey alone.

Santa Barbara was founded in 1786, four years after Father Serra's death. The present church was completed in 1820 and is described by Father Engelhardt as "probably the most solid structure of its kind in California." The Indian population of the mission was at its maximum in 1803, numbering seventeen hundred and ninety-two souls. The secularization decree took place in 1834, at which time the property was valued at a little in excess of one hundred thousand dollars. So notably was the Mexican program a failure at Santa Barbara that ten years later the property was restored to the padres; but the Indians were scattered, the wealth dissipated, and the building in a sad state of disrepair. Less than three hundred natives remained and these gained a living with difficulty. Three years afterwards the governor sold the property to a private party for seventy-five hundred dollars; but after the American occupation it was returned to the church.

The arcade fronting the sea, the cloisters partly surrounding the garden, and a few other portions of the original buildings remain, but the present dormitory is modern. The decree authorizing the college was issued by Rome more than fifty years ago and the restoration work proceeded but slowly, being done largely by the fathers and their students. Father O'Keefe, the kindly old priest whom we met at San Luis Rey, directed much of the work and pushed it to completion. His excellent record here resulted in his transfer to the southern mission where, as we have seen, he was also singularly successful.

Before we departed we purchased a copy of Father Engelhardt's history and left our modest contribution as well, for the Franciscan fathers, who have so faithfully labored to restore and protect this beautiful old mission and who show such courtesy to the visiting stranger, have no source of income except voluntary gifts.

Coming out, we paused awhile to admire the sunset bay from the arcade and then wended our way along flower-bordered walks to our hotel.

There is no other town of the size in California—or scarcely of any size, for that matter—that has about it such a wonderful series of drives and walks as Santa Barbara.

At the time of our first visit some of these were closed to motors and as a guide seemed almost a necessity, we decided to abandon the car for the novelty of a horse-drawn vehicle. We had no trouble at all in finding one for there were a host of Jehus on the street who recognized us as tourists at sight and eagerly hailed us as possible customers. We chose the oldest fellow of all, partly out of sympathy and partly because we liked his face, and it proved a more fortunate selection than we suspected at the time. He was an old-time Californian, having crossed the plains with his parents in 1854, when a child of six. He had an adventurous career, beginning with that time, for he was stolen from the camp by a band of Indians and recovered two days later by the pioneers after a sharp fight. He had been in the midst of the mining maelstrom and was rich and poor half a dozen times—poor the last time, he declared, and now the condition had become chronic. He had lived in Santa Barbara thirty years and not only knew every nook and corner of the town and vicinity, but could tell who lived in the houses and many bits of interesting history and gossip as well.

In the forenoon he took us among the fine homes of the millionaire residents, some of which reminded us not a little—though of course on a smaller scale—of great English estates we had visited. But in Santa Barbara they have the advantage of shrubs and trees which flourish the year round and from nearly all there is a perennial view of summer sea, always beautiful and inspiring. The grounds of many of these places are open to visitors and some are marvelously beautiful; the climate admits of great possibilities in landscape-gardening in the free use of semi-tropical shrubs, palms, flowers, and fruit trees.

Our guide then took us through the grounds of the Miramar Hotel Colony, if I may so describe it. Here a wooded hill on the shore is covered with a group of cottages, which are rented by guests who get their meals at a central building—a plan that affords the advantages of privacy and outdoor life without the cares of housekeeping.

Of course we visited the Gillespie house and gardens—"El Furiedes," which may be roughly translated as "pleasure garden"—which, after the mission, is probably the most distinctive attraction of Santa Barbara. The gardens cover about forty acres and contain a great variety of rare flowers, shrubs, and trees from all parts of the world. In places these form tangled thickets where one might easily lose himself if not familiar with the winding paths. Quiet pools play an important part in the decorative scheme, and these were beautified with rare water plants, among them the Egyptian lotus. In the center of the grounds is the house, built along the lines of a Roman villa. It is not open to visitors, but our guide declared that it contains a costly collection of antiques of all kinds. The main doors are remarkable examples of carving, dating from about 1450, and were taken from a Moorish temple in Spain. The owner of this beautiful place, a New York millionaire, said our guide, spends only a small part of his time in Santa Barbara. In the meanwhile the gardens are maintained at his expense, and are as easy of access to visitors as a public park.

Before returning to our hotel we made the round of the city and our driver pointed out some of the older and more historic buildings. Of these the de la Guerre mansion is the most notable aside from the mission itself. Here took place the marriage of Donna Anita to Senor Noriega y Carillo, so vivaciously described by Dana in "Two Years Before the Mast." It is a typical old-time Spanish residence, low, solid, and surrounding the inevitable court. We were also shown the homes of several people of more or less celebrity who live in Santa Barbara, among them Stewart Edward White, and Robert Cameron Rogers, the poet and author of "The Rosary," whose death California so sincerely mourned a little later.

There are many famous "Little Journeys" out of Santa Barbara which it would be superfluous to describe in detail. There are several good local guidebooks with maps to be had and the services of the Southern California Auto Club branch are always available. You can do most of these excursions in two or three days, including a round trip via the San Marcos Pass, to the Santa Ynez Mission, returning via Los Olivos and the Gaviota Pass. I shall describe the drive which we made on our first visit—and we made it in an old-fashioned surrey, for the road was then closed to motors. I am glad that we were forced to adopt that good old method of locomotion, as it gave us leisure to contemplate the beauties of the scenery that we should scarce have had in our car.

"Take the sixteen-mile drive," says the old driver. "It's one of the best; it is closed to autos and you can do all the rest in your car."

So it's the "sixteen-mile drive" for us, and a wonderful panorama of green hills, wooded canyons and calm, shining sea it proves to be. The road has many steep pitches and follows the edges of the hills like a narrow shelf; vehicles can pass in but few places and all are required to go in the same direction. From the summits we have many far-reaching views of hill and valley, whose brilliant greens are tempered by the pale violet bloom of the mountain lilac. It is a view very much like some we have seen and many more we are to see, but we shall never weary of it. We have gained something of the spirit of the good old John Muir. "Climb the mountains," he urges, "and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into the trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves." And so, as we slowly wind about this green-bordered mountain trail, we pause at every vantage point to contemplate the view and finally the most glorious scene of all breaks on our vision, a panorama of wooded hills sloping down to the summer sea—wonderfully calm to-day, with a curious effect of light and color. Across its mirrorlike surface bars of steely blue light run to the channel islands, Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa, whose mountainous bulk looms in the amethystine haze of sunset some twenty miles away. Of the channel before us Mr. John McGroarty writes in his delightful "History and Romance of California":

"Nor is this all that makes the charm, the beauty, the climatic peace and calm and the fascination of Santa Barbara. Twenty-five miles out to sea a marine mountain range, twin sister of the Santa Ynez on shore, rears its glowing peaks from the tumbling billows in a series of islands. So it is that Santa Barbara faces not the open sea, but a channel or a strait of the sea. Up into this channel flows the warm ocean current from the south and so adds its beneficence to complete the climatic combination that keeps the spot snug and warm and free from all violence in winter, the selfsame combination leaving it cool and refreshing through the long, sunny summers. So, also, do the twin mountain ranges—the one on land, the other out at sea—give Santa Barbara a marine playground as safe and as placid as Lake Tahoe. The channel is a yachtsman's paradise. To its long sweep of blue waters—a stretch of seventy miles—come the Pacific-Coast-built ships of the American navy to be tried out and tested for speed and endurance."

Returning to the city, we followed Sycamore Canyon—rightly named, indeed, for throughout its length is a multitude of giant sycamores, gnarled and twisted into a thousand fantastic shapes like trees of Dante's Inferno. Scattered among them were a few majestic live-oaks, which gradually increased in numbers as we came into the beautiful suburb of Montecito, with its handsome residences and flower-spangled lawns. Our driver enlightened us on the value of some of the places offered for sale, also of numerous vacant lots just on the edge of the town. Three to five thousand per acre seemed to be the average sum that a millionaire was asked to invest should he desire to establish an "estate" here—prices quite as high as was then demanded for similar property in the neighborhood of Los Angeles. And it is not likely that values will cease to advance.

The completion of the new highway has put Santa Barbara into easy touch with the metropolis by motor car, adding still farther to its desirability as a residence town for people with leisure and money. The distance, just one hundred miles, is an easy three-hours' drive and a very popular Sunday jaunt from Los Angeles and frequent motor busses make the trip daily. All of which serve to make Santa Barbara a long-distance suburb of the Queen City to a far greater extent than it was in the days of rough roads and the "dreadful Casitas Pass," as I heard it styled more than once.