254 A CALIFORNIA TRAMP. 



sacerdotal music and incense had they none, except what the 

 loaded muskets of the military escort furnished. 



Eighteen of these missions were scattered along the coast 

 within twenty miles of the sea. The Fathers were devoted to 

 their work, and at one time (1800) had fifteen thousand con- 

 verts on the rolls. But they were held by the frail tenure of 

 favor and reward of creature comforts, so that when the 

 missions were denuded of their lands the miserable wretches 

 returned to the ways of their fathers. At its most flourishing 

 time the Mission Dolores had about eight hundred converted 

 Indians connected with it, and eighty thousand cattle, horses 

 and mules, and the same number of sheep. In 1831 the num- 

 ber of the former had gone down to six thousand, while 

 there was no record of the latter. The valleys along the 

 rivers running into the bay made fine pasture ground, and 

 cattle-raising flourished until the Fathers lost their control 

 and their faithful Indians w^ere driven to their late vagabond 

 life. Dana, in his "Two Years Before the Mast," gives an 

 interesting account of his visit to this mission, and the suff'er- 

 ings of the crew while collecting hides and getting wood and 

 water. 



The crushing out of the missions through the rapacity of 

 the Mexican government, and the necessity of the Fathers 

 giving up their pious work, and the scattering of their con- 

 verts, is a painful chapter in the history of California. The 

 Indians, even if held to Christianity by being w^ell fed and 

 clothed, were much better off than when savages, and led com- 

 paratively industrious lives, while their religious instructors 

 or masters, if you choose to call them so, though often ignorant 

 monks, led exemplary, self-sacrificing lives, and did the best 

 they knew for the bodily and spiritual welfare of their wards. 



While the Mexicans held California there was a struggle 

 between the clerical and secular power over the missions, which 

 at times would attain some of their former power, while at 



