peared. The Missions, which had already lost
much of their property and power under the Mexican Government,
quickly shrank after this new invasion into decrepitude. The
practical Anglo-Saxon introduced railroads, electricity, commerce,
mammoth hotels, and scientific irrigation, all of which the Fathers,
Mexicans, and Indians never would have cared for. Nevertheless, with
his arrival, the curtain fell upon as peaceful a life-drama as the
world had seen.

[Illustration: SANTA BARBARA.]

[Illustration: SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO.]

[Illustration: GROUP OF FRANCISCAN FRIARS.]

To the reader, thinker, and poet the memories and associations of
these Missions form, next to the gifts of Nature, the greatest charm
of Southern California; and, happily, although that semi-patriarchal
life has passed away, its influence still lingers; for, scattered
along the coast--some struggling in poverty, some lying in
neglect--are the adobe churches, cloisters, and fertile
Mission-fields of San Juan Capistrano, San Fernando Rey, Santa
Monica, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz, all of which still preserve
the soft and gracious names, so generously given in those early days,
and fill us with a genuine reverence for the sandaled monks, who by
incessant toil transformed this barren region into a garden, covered
these boundless plains with flocks and herds, and dealt so wisely
with the Indians that even their poor descendants, to-day, reverence
their memory.

[Illustration: CHIEF OF A TRIBE OF MISSION INDIANS.]

The Saxon has done vastly more, it is true; but, in some ways, he has
done much less. The very names which he bequeathed to places not
previously christened by the Spaniards, such as Gold Gulch, Hell's
Bottom, and Copperopolis, tell a more forcible, though not as
beautiful a tale, as the melodious titles, San Buenaventura, San
Francisco Dolores, Santa Clara, San Gabriel, and La Purissima.

[Illustration: INDIAN WOMEN.]

It is not, therefore, the busy streets and handsome dwellings of Los
Angeles and Pasadena, but the adobe ruins, the battered statues, the
cracked and voiceless bells, the poor remnants of the Indian tribes,
and even the old Spanish names, behind which lies a century of
sanctity and romance, which give to Southern California an atmosphere
of the Old World and harmonize most perfectly with its history.

[Illustration: SAN DIEGO MISSION.]

Most of the Mission buildings are in a sad condition. Earthquakes
have shattered some