for
the period of his governorship, though he doubtless lived at or near the
presidio, the Mission saw more or less of him. As is shown in the
chapter on Secularization, he was engaged in a thankless task when he
sought to change the Mission system, and there was no love lost between
the governor's house and the Mission.

In 1833 Governor Figueroa visited San Diego Mission in person, in order
to exhort the neophytes to seize the advantages of citizenship which the
new secularization regulations were to give to them; but, though they
heard him patiently, and there and at San Luis Rey one hundred and sixty
families were found to be duly qualified for "freedom," only ten could
be found to accept it.

On March 29, 1843, Governor Micheltorena issued a decree which restored
San Diego Mission temporalities to the management of the padre. He
explained in his prelude that the decree was owing to the fact that the
Mission establishments had been reduced to the mere space occupied by
the buildings and orchards, that the padres had no support but that of
charity, etc. Mofras gives the number of Indians in 1842 as five
hundred, but an official report of 1844 gives only one hundred. The
Mission retained the ranches of Santa Isabel and El Cajon until
1844-1845, and then, doubtless, they were sold or rented in accordance
with the plans of Pio Pico.

To-day nothing but the _fachada_ of the church remains, and that has
recently been braced or it would have fallen. There are a few portions
of walls also, and a large part of the adobe wall around the garden
remains. The present owner of the orchard, in digging up some of the old
olive trees, has found a number of interesting relics, stirrups, a
gun-barrel, hollow iron cannon-balls, metates, etc. These are all
preserved and shown as "curios," together with beams from the church,
and the old olive-mill.

By the side of the ruined church a newer and modern brick building now
stands. It destroys the picturesqueness of the old site, but it is
engaged in a good work. Father Ubach, the indefatigable parish priest of
San Diego, who died a few years ago, and who was possessed of the spirit
of the old padres, erected this building for the training of the Indian
children of the region. On one occasion I asked the children if they
knew any of the "songs of the old," the songs their Indian grandparents
used to sing; and to my delight, they sang two of the old chorals taught
their ancestors in the