The Trout Streams of the Missions 139 



imagination to see the cowled friars casting in 

 the pools. That angling is a virtuous sport we 

 well know. Does not Walton say, " All that are 

 lovers of virtue ... be quiet; and go a-angling "? 

 Again, " And so, if I might be judge, God never 

 did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation 

 than angling." Surely there could be no sin 

 should a contemplative man of God in leaving 

 San Carlos Borromeo for a stroll up the fair 

 valley of Carmel forget for a moment the more 

 spiritual things, and find himself breaking a 

 willow wand, attaching a cord in his pocket, all 

 by accident, and casting for the gleaming rain- 

 bows that lurked in every pool. The disciples 

 were fishermen, and ennobled their following; 

 and what sin for a modern man, be he Protes- 

 tant, Koman Catholic, heathen, or Jew, to con- 

 fess to a weakness for gentle streams and leaping 

 trout? 



One of the fairest of the missions, San Carlos 

 Borromeo, was founded by Junipero Serra on 

 the Rio Carmelo, in 1771. I saw it first when 

 wandering along the banks of this attractive 

 trout stream that whispered as it flowed on to 

 the distant laguna; moving now beneath bending 

 willows, or out into the open, a sparkling, virile 

 thing. The mesa was a Field of the Cloth of Gold, 

 waving forests of mustard, over which against 

 the fog-flecked sky and the laguna rose the spires 

 and domes of San Carlos, its groves and ancient 



