as on a beautiful slope of the hill, flanked by a
fertile valley opening out to the glittering sea, with the mountains of
Santa Lucia in front and a great pine forest behind. The valley was
named Carmelo, in honor of Vizcaino's Carmelite friars, and the mission
was named for San Carlos Borromeo.
The present church of Monterey was not a mission church, but the chapel
of the _presidio_, or barracks. It is now, according to Father
Casanova, the oldest building in California. The old Mission of San
Diego, first founded of all, was burned by the Indians. It was
afterwards rebuilt, but this took place after the chapel in Monterey
was finished. The mission in Carmelo was not completed until later, as
the Padre was obliged to secure authority from Mexico, that he might
place it on the pasture lands of Carmelo, instead of the sand-hills of
Monterey.
When the discoveries of Portola and Ortega had been reported at San
Diego, the shores of this inland sea of San Francisco seemed a most
favorable station for another mission. Among the missions already
dedicated to the saints, none had yet been found for the great father
of the Franciscan order, St. Francis of Assisi, the beloved saint who
could call the birds and who knew the speech of all animals. Before
this, Father Serra had said to Governor Galvez, "And for our Father St.
Francis is there to be no mission?" And Galvez answered, "If St.
Francis wants a mission, let him show his port, and we will found the
mission there."
And now the lost port of St. Francis was found, and it was the most
beautiful of all, with the noblest of harbors, and the fairest of views
toward the hills and the sea. So the new mission was called for him,
the Mission San Francisco de los Dolores. For the Creek Dolores, the
"brook of sorrows," flowed by the mission, and gave it part of its
name. But Dolores stream is long since obliterated, forming part of
the sewage system of San Francisco.[3]
Thus was founded
"that wondrous city, now apostate to the creed,
O'er whose youthful walls the Padre saw the angel's golden reed."
Meanwhile, following San Diego de Alcala and San Carlos Borromeo, a
long series of missions was established, each one bearing the sonorous
Spanish name of some saint or archangel, each in some beautiful sunny
valley, half-hidden by oaks, and each a day's ride distant from the
next. In the most charming nook of the Santa Lucia Mountains was built
San Anto
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