nio de Padua; in the finest open pastures of the Coast Range,
San Luis Obispo de Tolosa. In the rich valley, above the city of the
Queen of the Angels, the beautiful church of San Gabriel Arcangel was
dedicated to the leader of the hosts of heaven. Later, came the
magnificent San Juan Capistrano, ruined by earthquakes in 1812. In its
garden still stands the largest pepper-tree in Southern California.

Then Santa Clara was built in the center of the fairest valley of the
State. Next came San Buenaventura and Santa Barbara, for the coast
Indians of the south, and Santa Cruz, for those to the north of
Monterey Bay. In the Salinas Valley, along the "_Camino real_," or
royal highway, from the south to the north, were built Nuestra Senora
de la Soledad and San Miguel Arcangel. A day's journey from Carmelo,
in the valley of the Pajaro, arose San Juan Bautista. In the charming
valley of Santa Ynez, still hidden from the tourist, a day's journey
apart, were Santa Ynez and La Purisima Concepcion. East of the Bay of
San Francisco, in a nook famous for vineyards, arose the Mission San
Jose.

[Illustration: Mission of San Antonio de Padua.]

In the broad, rocky pastures above Los Angeles, arose San Fernando Key
de Espana, while midway between San Diego and San Juan Capistrano was
placed the stateliest of all the missions, dedicated, with its rich
river valley, to the memory of San Luis Rey de Francia. Finally, to
the north of San Francisco Bay, was built San Rafael, small, but
charmingly situated, and then San Francisco Solano, still farther on in
Sonoma. This, the northernmost outpost of the saints, the last,
weakest, and smallest, was first to die. It was founded in 1823, fifty
years after the Mission San Diego.

Wherever you find in California a warm, sunny valley leading from the
ocean back to the purple mountains, with a clear stream in its midst,
and filled in summer with blue haze, around it steep slopes on which
grapes may grow, you have found a mission valley, and these grapes are
mission grapes. Somewhere in it you will see a cluster of large,
wide-spreading pepper-trees, with delicate light-green foliage, or a
grove of gnarled olives, looking like stunted willows, or, perhaps, a
cluster of old pear-trees, or sometimes a tall palm. Near these you
will find the ruins of old houses of adobe, wherein once dwelt the
Indian neophytes. These houses are clustered around the walls, now
almost in ruins, of the mis