Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/484

 the land improvements, in the shape of houses, vineyards, etc., to the amount of $1000.

The Santa Margarita ranch-house is of adobe, very thick-walled, with a terrace in front, and an interior court. The waiting at table was by a broad-faced Indian woman in calico. All the domestic service was performed by mission Indians, except the cooking, for which a Chinaman had lately been secured, with the view of having meals on time. The manner of living on these great places was found comfortable, but without the "princely" features attributed to it in some of the highly colored narratives of former travellers.

The greater part of the available land in the section was devoted to pasture. The cereals were cultivated, but not much fruit. Barley is the favorite cereal, as less liable to "rust" and spoil than wheat. Hay is made, not of grass, but of wheat and barley straw, cut green, with the milk still in it. Bee-culture is an important industry. A number of varieties of wild sage, wild buckwheat and sumac, furnish the bees exceptionally good provender. Rows of the square hives, painted in colors, were often seen districted into little streets on the hill-side, or at the mouth of some small canon, like a miniature city. Before reaching Don Juan Forster's the old mission of San Luis Rey is encountered, in the hamlet of the same name. It is almost Venetian in aspect. The whole exterior was at one time faced with a diagonal pattern recalling that of the Ducal Palace. The pile was ruined by a Mormon contingent of the American forces engaged in the conquest of the State. Parts of the heavy adobe walls and buttresses have fallen in, and resolved themselves back into their original element as mere earth-heaps. The images have been shot and hacked down, and a yawning cavern was excavated behind the main