LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 143 



luxuriant vegetation. Fig-trees, bananas, cherry, and ap- 

 ple, leaf-spreading platanos, and groves of olives, form um- 

 brageous vistas, under which the sleek monks delight to 

 wander ; gardens, cultivated by their own hands, testify 

 to the horticultural skill of the worthy padres ; whilst 

 vineyards yield their grateful produce to gladden the 

 hearts of the holy exiles in these western solitudes. Vast 

 herds of cattle roam half-wild on the plains, and bands of 

 mules and horses, whose fame has even reached the dis- 

 tant table-lands of the Rocky Mountains, and excited the 

 covetousness of the hunters and thousands of which, from 

 the day they are foaled to that of their death, never feel a 

 saddle on their backs cover the country. Indians (Man- 

 sitos) idle round the skirts of these vast herds (whose very 

 numbers keep them together), living, at their own choice, 

 upon the flesh of mule, or ox, or horse. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE Mission of San Fernando is situated on a small river 

 called Las Animas, a branch of the Los Martires. The 

 convent is built at the neck of a large plain, at the point 

 of influx of the stream from the broken spurs of the sierra. 

 The savana is covered with luxuriant grass, kept down, 

 however, by the countless herds of cattle w r hich pasture on 

 it. The banks of the creek are covered with a lofty growth 

 of oak and poplar, which, near the Mission, have been con- 

 siderably thinned for the purpose of affording fuel and 

 building materials for the increasing settlement. The con- 

 vent stands in the midst of a grove of fruit-trees, its rude 

 tower and cross peeping above them, and contrasting pic- 

 turesquely with the wildness of the surrounding scener} r . 

 Gardens and orchards lie immediately in front of the build- 

 ing, and a vineyard stretches away to the upland ridge of 



