Part 15

"Oh, they were shrewd, far-sighted men, those old Franciscan padres," said Father Buckler, "when it came to choosing a site for a mission. Do you know that old Governor Borica, who declared California 'the most peaceful and quiet country on earth,' was the man who located Santa Ynez in this spot, which he styled 'beautiful for situation' in making his report? Surely he knew, for he himself had made long explorations in the mountainous regions by the coast and five missions in 1796-7 were established by Padre Lasuen under the Governor's orders. Santa Ynez was founded in 1804; it was not one of the great missions, since its greatest population was only seven hundred and sixty-eight in 1816, but it was one of the most prosperous in proportion to its size. Its first church was destroyed by the earthquake of 1812, but five years later the chapel which you now see was completed. The arrangement and style of the buildings here in 1830 were much like Santa Barbara, though everything was on a smaller scale. The secularization took place five years later, at which time the property was considered worth almost fifty thousand dollars—which meant a good deal more than it would now. The Mexican Government had such poor success with the Indians that they gave the mission back to the padres in 1843, but the evil work had been done and prosperous days never returned. In 1850 it was abandoned and gradually fell into ruin.

"I was sent here with instructions to report on the feasibility of restoring the mission. I expected to remain but two months at most, and now eleven years have passed since I came. My work was well under way when the earthquake of 1906 compelled me to start over again and it was but two years ago that the bell-tower and several buttresses of the church suddenly crumbled and fell in a heap in the cemetery. We were only too thankful when we found the four ancient bells unharmed—the rest I was sure we could rebuild, and we did it in enduring concrete. Last Easter we held a special service to celebrate the restoration, and chimes were rung on the old bells from their place in the new tower.

"Our congregation is a small one and very poor. It includes about sixty Indians, most of whom live in and about Santa Ynez. They are all very religious and have great reverence for old paintings and figures. Many valuable relics have been looted from Santa Ynez Mission, but never by an Indian—the educated white man is usually the thief. Indeed, it was a college professor who stole a beautiful hand-wrought plate from the old door. Come with me, my friends, and see what we have done."

He led the way first to the chapel, a long, narrow, heavily buttressed structure built of adobe. The "fachada" is the restoration spoken of and the father hopes gradually to reproduce the ancient building in the same enduring material. In the chapel is a large collection of pictures, statues and candlesticks, some of them ancient and others of little value. Traces of the old decorations remain, mostly sadly defaced, except in the chancel, where the original design and coloring are still fairly perfect.

The padre then led us to his curio room, containing relics of ancient days. He is a true antiquarian and few if any of the missions had as good a collection. The most curious was a mechanical organ player, an extremely ingenious contrivance for enabling one with little musical ability to play the instrument, and an old horse fiddle, still capable of producing a hideous noise. Besides these there were rusty little cannons, antique flintlock muskets and pistols and swords of various kinds; candlesticks in silver and brass; ponderous locks and keys; church music done on parchment; great tomes of church records, bound in rawhide, and a great variety of vessels for ecclesiastical and domestic use. There was a huge yellow silk umbrella which was carried by the padres in days of old on their pedestrian trips from mission to mission, for the rules of the order forbade riding. So strict were they on this score that at one of the missions where the monks had been guilty of riding in carts the president ordered that these vehicles should all be burned.

The pride of the father's heart was the collection of ancient vestments, which we consider the finest we saw at any of the missions. In addition to those belonging to Santa Ynez, the vestments of La Purisima are treasured here. Most of them were made in Spain over a hundred years ago and they are still in a surprisingly perfect condition. Rare silks and satins of purest white or of rich and still unfaded color were heavily broidered with sacred emblems in gold and silver and there was something appropriate to every festival and ceremony of the church. "Many of them are worth a thousand dollars each," said Father Buckler, "but no money could buy them, for that matter. Yes, I wear them on state occasions and they are greatly admired and even reverenced by my parishioners."

A more gruesome collection—a queer whim of the father's—was a case of glass bottles and jars containing all manner of reptiles and vermin discovered in or about the old building during the restoration work. There were snakes of all sizes and species, lizards, scorpions, tarantulas, and other venomous creatures, all safely preserved in alcohol.

"They are not very common now," said the father, "but my collection shows some of the inhabitants of the mission when I first came here."

When we came out again into the pleasant arcade, Father Buckler called our attention to another of his diversions more agreeable to think upon—his collection of cacti and flowering shrubs. Several of the former were in bloom and we were especially delighted with the delicate, pink, lily-shaped flower of the barrel cactus which, the father assured us, is very rare indeed.

We thanked the kindly old priest for his courtesy, not forgetting a slight offering to assist in his good work of rescuing Santa Ynez from decay, and bade him farewell.

"We are always glad to get acquainted with the mission priests. They have proved good fellows, without exception," we declared, "and we hope we may find Father Buckler here on our next visit."

"I was not asked to come here—I was sent," said the father, "and I hope they may not send me elsewhere on account of my years; but if the order comes I must go."

He laughingly declined to be photographed in his "working clothes" and waved us a cordial farewell as we betook ourselves to our steed of steel, which always patiently awaited our return. We were glad as we swept over the fine road through the beautiful vale that we were not of the Franciscan order—we would rather not walk, thank you!

The five-mile run from the mission to Los Olivos was a beautiful one, through oak-studded meadows stretching to the foot of mighty mountains, about whose summits the purple evening shadows were gathering. Just at twilight we came into the poor-looking little town of a dozen or so frame "shacks" and cottages.

It had been a strenuous day, despite the fact that we had covered only fifty-four miles—the distance via Gaviota Pass. The San Marcos route is fifteen miles shorter, but our trip that way took no less than four hours, three of which were spent on the heavy grades of the pass. The Gaviota road much of the way was adobe, which, being translated into Middle West parlance, would be "black gumbo," and a recent heavy rain had made it dreadfully rutty and rough. We were weary enough to wish for a comfortable inn, but Los Olivos did not look very promising. It chanced, however, that we were agreeably disappointed in our expectations—at the edge of the village was a low, rambling building which they told us was the hotel. Here we found one of the old-time country inns to which the coming motor had given a new lease of life and renewed prosperity. Mattei's Tavern evidently gets its chief patronage from the motor, for no fewer than seven cars brought five or more passengers each on the evening of our arrival. Some were fishing parties—the Santa Ynez River is famous for trout—and not all the guests remained over night, though many of them did. Our rooms, while on the country hotel order, were clean and comfortable. But the dinner—I have eaten meals in pretentious city hotels not so good as that served to us by the bewhiskered old waiter at Mattei's Tavern. We had made a guess as to the nationality of the proprietor—Swiss—and the waiter confirmed it. We had stopped at hotels with Swiss managers before, in many countries besides Switzerland, and always found in evidence the same knack of doing things right. Mattei himself was on the job looking after the details to insure the maximum of comfort to his guests, and, like the manager of the Kaiserhof at Lucerne, he was at the door to bid us good-bye and Godspeed.

After dinner we walked about the little village and the silence and loneliness seemed almost oppressive. Overhead bent the clear, star-spangled heavens, while around the wide floor of the valley ran a circle of ill-defined mountains, still touched to the westward with the faint glow of the vanished sun. Certainly, if one were seeking rest and retirement away from the noise and bustle of the busy world, he might find it in Los Olivos!

The new highway misses the village by a mile or two, but the knowing ones will never regret that its quiet and seclusion are still unbroken. They will enjoy the pleasant rural inn even more on that account.

Our car was before the Tavern's vine-covered veranda early in the morning. There was nothing to detain us in Los Olivos and after a breakfast quite as satisfactory as the dinner of the evening before—we had trout from the Santa Ynez—we bade good-bye to our host, who gave us careful directions about the road. These were beginning to be needed, for sign-boards were less frequent and El Camino Real in some places was little better than it must have been in the days of the padres—often scarcely distinguishable from the byroads. All this will be improved in the near future, for everywhere along the roadside we saw stakes marking the state highway survey, which, when carried to completion, will make El Camino Real a highway fit for a king, indeed!

For the greater part of the day we ran through hills studded with immense oaks—the omnipresent glory of this section of California. In places we caught glimpses of green carpeted dales stretching beneath these forest giants, and noticed that these trees usually stand at spacious distances from each other, which no doubt accounts for their perfect symmetry. The road in the main is level, though somewhat rough and winding as far as Santa Maria, the first town of consequence. It is a modern, prosperous-looking place which the last census set down as possessing four thousand souls; it now claims a thousand more and, indeed, its appearance seems to substantiate its claim, though one is likely to be fooled in this particular by some of the newer California towns. Their wide streets and spacious lots often give the impression of a larger population than they really have.

Out of Santa Maria we followed a bumpy road to Arroyo Grande through a brown, barren-looking country—for the season had been almost without rain. The wind was blowing a gale, driving the sand with stinging force into our faces; and two weeks later when we passed over the same road on our return the same sirocco was sweeping the country. We asked a garage man of Santa Maria if this had been going on all the time, but he promptly declared that it had begun only that morning and that it was "very unusual."

From Arroyo Grande there were two main roads to San Luis Obispo, but we chose the one which swings out to the ocean at El Pizmo beach, a popular resort in season, though when we saw it a forlorn-looking, belittered hamlet, seemingly almost deserted. The attraction of the place is the wide, white beach, some twenty miles long, so hard and smooth that some record-breaking motor races have been made upon it. We could see but little, for a gray fog half hid the restless ocean and swept in ghostly curtains between us and the hills. The road ascended a long grade, affording some glorious sea views, for the fog had broken into fleecy clouds and the sunlight had turned the gray sea into a dense expanse of lapis lazuli. But we had not long to admire it, for the road turned sharply inland and a half dozen miles brought us into San Luis Obispo. The town takes its name from the mission founded by Serra himself in 1775—San Luis, Bishop of Tolusa, being commemorated by Padre Lasuen, who selected the site. Near at hand may be seen a series of strange pyramidal mountains, almost as regular in contour as the pyramids of Egypt, and one of them, curiously cleft through the center, suggested a bishop's mitre to the ancient Franciscan; hence the name of the "City of the Bishop." The town, though ancient, has little of interest save the mission and this, through unsympathetic restoration, has lost nearly all touch of the picturesque.

We hesitated a moment in front of the chapel and a Mexican at work on the lawn offered to conduct us about the place, and a very efficient guide he proved to be. He led us into the long, narrow chapel, now in daily use and which has a number of old paintings and queer images besides the regular paraphernalia one finds in Catholic churches. While we walked about, several Mexican women came in and kneeled at their devotions. They were clearly of the poorer class; our guide said that the people of the congregation were poor and that the padre had difficulty in raising money to keep up the mission. Around the neat garden at the rear of the new dormitory—a frame building contrasting queerly with the thick, solid walls of the chapel—were scattered bits of adobe walls of the buildings which had fallen into decay. One low, solid old structure, used as a storeroom and stable, remained to show the sturdy construction of the buildings.

"Here at San Luis," said our guide, "tile roofs were first used; the Indians burned the buildings twice by setting fire to the reed roofs with burning arrows; then the fathers made tile which would not burn and all the missions learned this from San Luis."

He showed us with great pride the treasures of San Luis, in the relic room at the rear of the chapel. Chief among these was the richly broidered vestment worn by Junipero Serra at the dedication services more than a century ago. There were many other vestments and rare old Spanish altar cloths with splendidly wrought gold and silver embroidery which elicited exclamations of delight from the ladies of our party. The guide must have thought he noted a covetous look when he showed us some of the old hand-wrought silver vessels, candlesticks, and utensils, for he said, "The fathers must die for want of money rather than sell any of it." On leaving we asked if he had not a booklet about San Luis such as we had obtained at several of the missions and he gave us a thick pamphlet which proved to be an exposition of the faith by a well-known Catholic bishop.

While it is desirable that any mission be restored rather than to fall into complete ruin, it certainly is to be regretted when the work is done so injudiciously as at San Luis Obispo. Here original lines have been quite neglected and so far as giving any idea of the architecture and daily life of the padres and their charges, the work had better been left undone. The state, we believe, should assist in restoration, but it should be done under intelligent supervision, with the view of reproducing the mission as it stood at its best period under the Franciscan monks. Old material should be employed as far as possible, but this does not seem so important as to have the original designs faithfully adhered to.

Two or three years later a disastrous fire wiped out much of San Luis Obispo Mission. Restoration is proposed and we may hope that it will succeed and that it will be more in the spirit of the original structure than much of the work we saw when we visited the mission. The project should receive the encouragement and support of everyone interested in preserving the historic landmarks of our country.

A few miles out of San Luis on the Paso Robles road we crossed the Cuesta grade. It was a steady pull of a mile and a half over a ten per cent rise and from the beautifully engineered road we had many vistas of oak-covered hills and green valleys. Some of the lawnlike stretches by the roadside, with the Titanic oaks, reminded us of the great country "estates" we had seen in England, only there was no turret or battlement peeping from the trees on the hilltop. The western slope is steeper, some pitches exceeding fifteen per cent, and several sharp turns with precipitous declivities close beside the road made careful driving imperative.

Twenty miles farther over a fair road brought us to El Paso de Robles—the pass of the oaks—a name which it seemed to us might have been applied to almost any number of places along our route for the past day or two. The place is famous for its hot springs, which exist in great variety and whose curative properties were known to the Indians. The largest spring has a daily flow of two million gallons of sulphur-impregnated water at a temperature of one hundred and seven degrees. There is a little spring which reaches one hundred and twenty-four degrees, besides numerous others of varying composition. These springs are responsible for the palatial hotel which stands in the midst of beautiful grounds at the edge of the town. It was built several years ago of brick and stone in Swiss villa style, with wide verandas along the front. It was hardly up to date in some appointments, but the manager told us that plans were already complete for modernizing it throughout at a cost of a couple of hundred thousand dollars—though I fear the war wrecked this project as it did thousands of similar ones. We had no cause to complain, however, at the time of our visit, as the service was excellent and rates were moderate.

Out of Paso Robles the road still winds among the oaks, following the course of the Salinas River. At San Miguel, nine miles northward, is the mission of the same name, one of the most interesting of the entire chain. It has more of genuine antiquity about it, for it stands to-day in almost its original state. We not only particularly remember San Miguel, but have a vivid recollection of Father Nevin, the priest in charge, since he was the only one of those we met who seemed to have a strain of pessimism in his make-up and who showed occasional flashes of misanthropy. He led us first of all into the old chapel, the pride of San Miguel, and pointed out that the original roof and floor tiles were still in place and that the walls bore the original decorations. These were done in strongly contrasting colors, which have faded but little in the hundred years of their existence. As Indian motifs seemed to prevail, one of the ladies of our party asked if the work had been done by the Indians. Father Nevin looked really hurt at the query.

"My dear woman," he said, "do you know what you ask? Could those wretched barbarians have done the beautiful frescoes you see on these walls? The California Indians were the most degraded beings on earth. No, the work was done by the good padres themselves."

We were silenced, of course, but could not help thinking that Indians who designed such marvelous basketry might well have done this decoration with a little instruction. And such, indeed, seems to have been the case. George Wharton James, who is known as an authority on such matters, says that the work was done by the natives under the direction of a Spaniard named Murros and that the padres probably did none of it themselves. It is extremely interesting, as showing a church interior practically as it was when the Franciscans held sway in California.

On the walls are ten oil paintings brought from Spain which are considerably older than the church; the painter is unknown and the artistic merit is evidently very small. There are also some fine examples of genuine "mission furniture" in two solid old confessional chairs, supposed to have been made by the Indians. The first bell-tower was built of wood, but gave way some years ago and the bells are now mounted on an incongruous steel tower, something like those used to support windmills. The large bell, weighing over a ton, was recast twenty-five years ago from the metal of the ancient bells. The residence quarters have been restored and the beautiful arcade is still in good preservation. At the rear are remains of cloisters, which were built of burnt brick and now are in a sad state of decay. A few fragments of the wall which once surrounded the mission may still be seen, but, like the cloisters, these are rapidly disintegrating.

I said something to Father Nevin about the obligation which it seemed to me is upon the state to preserve these ancient monuments and added that France and England had wakened up in this regard and were taking steps—but I again unwittingly irritated the good father, for he interrupted me.

"France is a robber nation—she robbed the church just as the Mexicans robbed the missions in California!"

I expressed my regret for bringing up an unpleasant subject, and in taking leave proffered Father Nevin the little offering which we always felt due the good priests who were so courteous and patient with their visitors, but he insistently declined.

"No, no," he said. "I never take anything from a visitor. The question might be asked me, 'What have you done with all that money?' and the answer is easy if I never take any."

He then gave us careful directions about the road and we could not but feel that a kindly nature hid behind his somewhat gruff manner.

San Miguel, it is said, furnished more ideas to Frank Miller for his Riverside Inn reproductions than any other mission, for many of its odd little artistic touches have fortunately escaped the ravages of time. We noted a queer chimney rising above the comb of the roof of the monastic building. It is surmounted by six tiles—three on one side, sloping towards the three on the opposite side—and these are capped with a tile laid flatwise over the ends.

The mission was founded in 1797 by Padre Lasuen. The abundance of water near at hand was given as a reason for choosing the site, for it is scarcely as picturesque as many others. The irrigating ditches which conveyed the waters of Santa Ysabel springs over the mission lands, may still be seen. The first church was destroyed by a disastrous fire in 1806 and the present structure was completed in 1817—just a little more than a century ago. The greatest population numbered a thousand and ninety-six in 1814, but ten years later it was much reduced and at the secularization in 1836 only half the number were on the rolls. The total valuation was then estimated at about eighty thousand dollars. After the American occupation the mission fell into decay, but fortunately, the substantial construction of the church saved it from ruin. To-day the community is very poor and if outside help is not received from some source the deterioration of the buildings will be rapid.