LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 167 



ential awe, tell wondrous tales of its adventures on the road to its 

 present abiding place. 



Of late years the number of the canonical inmates of the con- 

 vent has been much reduced — there being but four priests now to 

 do the duties of the eleven who formerly inhabited it : Fray Au- 

 gustin, a Capuchin of due capacity of paunch, being at the head 

 of the holy quartette. Augustin is the conventual name of the 

 reverend father, who fails not to impress upon such casual visitants 

 to that ultima Thule as he deems likely to appreciate the inform- 

 ation, that, but for his humility, he might add the sonorous ap- 

 pellations of Ignacio Sabanal-Morales-y Fuentes — his family being 

 of the best blood of Old Castile, and known there since the days 

 of Ruy Gomez — el Campeador — possessing, moreover, half the 

 " vega" of the Ebro, &:c., where, had fate been propitious, he 

 would now have been the sleek superior of a rich capuchin con- 

 vent, instead of vegetating, a leather-clad frayle, in the wilds of 

 California Alta. 



Nevertheless, his lot is no bad one. With plenty of the best 

 and fattest meat to eat, whether of beef or venison, of bear or 

 mountain mutton ; with good wine and brandy of home make, and 

 plenty of it ; fruit of all climes in great abundance ; wheaten or 

 corn bread to suit his palate ; a tractable flock of natives to guide, 

 and assisted in the task by three brother shepherds ; far from the 

 strife of politics or party — secure from hostile attack (not quite, 

 by-the-by), and eating, drinking, and sleeping away his time, one 

 would think that Fray Augustin Ignacio Sabanal-Morales-y Fuentes 

 had little to trouble him, and had no cause to regret even the vega 

 of Castilian Ebro, held by his family since the days of el Cam- 

 peador. 



One evening Fray Augustin sat upon an adobe bench, under the 

 fig-tree shadowing the porch of the Mission. He was dressed in a 

 goat-skin jerkin, softly and beautifully dressed, and descending to 

 his hips, under which his only covering — tell it not in Gath I — 



