270 A CALIFORNIA TRAMP. 



on prone slab or stone erectly standing. Here lie side by side 

 pale-faced nun and swarthy Indian girl, pious priest and 

 dark-hued native ranchero. Thickly strewn are the graves ; 

 irreverence would say too thick for comfort. But there is no 

 elbowing for precedence in the narrow halls below ; there is 

 no jostling to provoke resentment in that world of silence. 

 Granite and marble shafts covered some of the graves, bright 

 sweet smelling flowers grew from others, while some were 

 neglected hollows. The Catholic has a love for the beautiful 

 engrafted in his piety, and you see the homes of his dead 

 ornamented with shrubs, flowers and s^ea-shells. 



The sun slowly sinks below the hills back of the Mission 

 Dolores, and the visitors are departing from the shrine of their 

 pilgrimage. Twilight is mantling the graveyard, and in its 

 shadows one can almost imagine he sees the cowled monks 

 standing rebukingly among the tombs before the representa- 

 tives of a race whose progress was so antagonistic to their labors. 

 With uncanny thoughts I close the clanging gates and leave 

 the abode of death for the congenial society of the living. 



