CHURCH OF SAN JOSE. 205 
are scattered round an open’ space, the plaza: 
trees of greenest foliage, in double rows, shade 
one from the burning sun, and everywhere spa- 
cious orchards and flower-gardens testify to the 
fertility of the soil. 
Having a note from a friend in San Francisco 
to the host of ‘ 
civility was accorded me, and by some superhu- 
House,’ more than ordinary 
man means a bugey would be ready in about two 
hours to take me to the mines. Crossing the 
Alameda, a grove of willows and oaks, planted 
by the padres, leads to the old crumbling walls 
of what was once avery spacious mission, now 
rapidly falling to decay. The interior of the old 
church is decorated with rude carvings, paint- 
ings of the Crucifixion, and frescoed figures of 
saints and martyrs, clad in garments of dazzling 
colours. One old shaven priest, with a parti- 
cularly dirty cassock, and a face so begrimed 
with layers of filth as to be mosquito-proof, was 
the only ecclesiastic visible. Thousands of cliff 
swallows (Hirundo lunifrons) were busy build- 
ing their bottle-shaped mud nests under the 
dilapidated roof 
Discovered little worth looking at in the 
town. Found the buggy waiting: my coachman, 
a regular Yankee, puffing vigorously at an im- 
