From the presidio, we rode off in the direction
of the mission, which we were told was three miles distant. The
country was rather sandy, and there was nothing for miles which
could be called a tree, but the grass grew green and rank, and there
were many bushes and thickets, and the soil is said to be good.
After a pleasant ride of a couple of miles, we saw the white walls
of the mission, and fording a small river, we came directly before it.
The mission is built of mud, or rather of the unburnt bricks of the
country, and plastered. There was something decidedly striking in
its appearance: a number of irregular buildings, connected with one
another, and disposed in the form of a hollow square, with a church at
one end, rising above the rest, with a tower containing five belfries,
in each of which hung a large bell, and with immense rusty iron
crosses at the tops. Just outside of the buildings, and under the
walls, stood twenty or thirty small huts, built of straw and of the
branches of trees, grouped together, in which a few Indians lived,
under the protection and in the service of the mission.
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