LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Shelf Mh.Ot UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, e. + + Id .♦. .♦. * + 1 THE OLD MISSIONS. Photographs of the Missions of Southern California, together with descriptive text. COPYRIGHT. CHAS. F. LUMMIS & COMPANY, LOS ANGELES, CAL. , 1888. ' :, * : ; k THE MISSION OF SAN JUAN. U^HE Mission of San Juan Capistrano was founded by Father Serra November 1, 1776. f Here, part of the buildings are still habitable. Service is held regularly in one of the small chapels. The church is a splendid ruin. It was of stone, one hundred and fifty feet long by one hundred feet in width, with walls five feet thick, a dome eighty feet high, and a fine belfry of arches, in which four bells rang. It was thrown down by an earthquake in 1812. The peace, silence and beauty of the little hamlet of San Juan are brooded over and dominated by the grand gray ruin, lifting the whole scene into ineffable harmony. AVander : ng in room after room, court after court, through corridors with red-tiled roofs and hundreds of broad Roman arches, over fallen pillars, and through carved doorways, whose untrodden thresholds have sunk out of sight in summer grasses, one asks himself if he be indeed in America." H. H. THE MISSION OF SAN LUIS REY. fHIS Mission was founded after the death of Serra, June 18, 1793. "Its ruin? arc even finer than those of San Juan. It has a perfectly proportioned dome, over the chancel, beauti- ful groined arches on either hand and over the altar. Four broad pilasters on each - e of tlic church are frescoed in a curious mixing of blues, light and dark, with reds and blacks which have faded and blended into a delicious tone. A byzantine pulpit hanging high on the wall and three old wooden statues in the niches are the only decorations left. Piles of dirt and rubbish fill the space in front of the altar and grass and weeds are growing in the corners. An old Mexican, a former servant of the Mission, has the ruin in charge and keeps the doors locked still, as if there were treasure to guard. As he totters along, literally holding his rags together, discoursing warmly of the splendors he recollects, he seems indeed a ghost from the old times." h. h. THE SAN DIEGO AND SAN GABRIEL MISSIONS. /yVN" the 16th of July, 1769, Father Junipero Serra and his little hand of devotees landed in (9 the harbor of San Diego. A cross was set up, facing the port, mass was celebrated and the grand hymn of the "Veni Creator" was sung, with only the smoke of muskets for incense. Thus was laid the corner-stone of the civilization of California. This was the spot \\ here thai grand old Franciscan began his work ; here he baptized his first Indian converts; here came in hasty flight, hunted and weary "Alessandro" and " Eaniona," and were married by rough but kindly Padre Gaspara. Now the only traces left of Father Junipero's heroic labors are a pile of crumbling ruins, a few old olive trees and palms; in less than another century even these will be gone; returned into the keeping of that mother, the earth, who puts no head- stones at the most sacred of her graves. The San Gabriel Mission was founded by Father Junipero Serra. September 8, 1771. Its site is about nine miles east of the City of the Angels. Its lands are now divided into ranchos and colony settlements. The massive old church is still standing in a fair state of pres- ervation, and is used for the daily services of the San Gabriel parish. In its near neighbor- hood are a few crumbling adobe hovels, the only remains of the once splendid and opulent Mission. '■■. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS