Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/460

 altogether. They write to the papers that it is only necessary to keep the surface well scratched with a cultivator, and a supply of moisture will always be found a few inches below it. It is certain that crops both of grapes and the cereals have been produced from unirrigated ground, even for a series of years. But then comes a dry year, in which everything, animals as well as plants, is scorched from off the face of the earth.

"Certainty is what is wanted," says a lively informant.

"You may not need water, as you may not a revolver, all the time; but when you do, you need it awful bad."

In the plain, just under the mountains, lies the old village and mission church of San Gabriel. The mission dates from 1761. It was founded, like the other missions of California, by friars sent out from the college of San Fernando, in the city of Mexico. I recollect well the original San Fernando. It stands on the street which was the scene of Cortez's disastrous retreat from the city, and is marked with an inscription commemorating the famous Leap of Alvarado. The Mission of San Gabriel is worthy of its picturesque origin. It has the same massiveness, color, and quaint rococo details, including the peculiar battlement, or Spanish horn of dominion. Six old green bronze bells hang in as many niches together. The fern-like shadows of a line of pepper-trees print themselves in the sunshine against the time-stained wall. No more than the church edifice now remains. Great agricultural establishments connected with all these missions were swept away, years before the American occupation, by edict of the Mexican government. Some bits of broken aqueduct, and