IN A MISSION PATIO 



N THE first day of November. 1776, that 

 zealous and noble Franciscan, Father Junipero 

 Serra, assisted by Father Gregorio Ammurio, 

 founded, some three miles from the sea and 

 nearly midway between the present cities of 

 Los Angeles and San Diego, the mission of 

 San Juan Capistrano. The bells were rung from the trees and 

 mass was celebrated by the fathers, participated in by a small 

 company of mission soldiers, and perchance a fe\v friendly In- 

 dians. Then followed the labor of building a mission. Adobe 

 bricks were moulded and baked in the sun. Tiles for floor 

 and roof were burned. Pine trees were felled in the moun- 

 tains many miles away and carried by hand to the spot. 

 Gradually about the great quadrangle arose the simple, sym- 

 metrical buildings of the establishment — the arched corridors, 

 the tiled roofs, the doors hewn by hand out of planks. 



Just twenty-one years later work upon the magnificent stone 

 church was commenced at one corner of the quadrangle, and 

 in 1806, after nine years of labor, it was completed, its walls 

 decorated, its bells hung in the massive tower, and its saints 

 enshrined. 



And to-day, nearly a hundred years later, what ruin greets 

 the eye ! Earthquake and vandalism have left but a suggestion 



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