Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/345

 SOUTHERN COUNTIES 293 has, besides, a veritably Catalonian passion for higher things for education, for the arts, and above all for the wondrous Kingdom of the Open Air toward which it sustains that large-souled, possessive attitude which is characteristic of the Coast. The original settlement established by Portola in 1781 on the name-day of Nuestra Señora, la Reina de Los Angeles lay north of the present city about the sleepy plaza which strangers still visit for its memories and its occasional pictures of dawdling Mexico. The old church on the west side of the square is the successor of a still older one which witnessed the plottings of intriguing Los Angeles, which mothered its courtships, and shared in its wedding and funeral rites. Across the way Fremont took up his headquarters when he and Stockton seized the town some seventy years ago. Close by was the garden of the Dona Reyes where was concealed until a propitious mo- ment the guard-house cannon that routed with its four-pound charge the intruding foreigners. It was known thereafter as the Woman's Gun and under this title has a place in the National Mu- seum at Washingtoh. Until recently, Spanish services were held in the Plaza Church. Behind it is the priests' court where religious pageants are sometimes staged. Within a short distance is Mexican Sonoratown,