146 Recreations of a Sportsman 



telling of the Coast Range and the Sierra Nevadas 

 beyond. The Santa Ynez winds upward into 

 the Coast Range, and the salmon-trout and rain- 

 bows find their way far south, sixty or seventy 

 miles, to the upper range of the Santa Ynez. 

 As the angler follows it up, casting here and 

 there, he feels in his very bones that not far 

 from these alluring pools there is a mission 

 built by good men, the kind that love purling 

 brooks, and " a primrose by the river's brim." 

 Such an angler is a true prophet, as once upon 

 a time a padre named Lasuen, walking through 

 these lands where the mustard blooms, looked 

 upon the river, and builded the mission of La 

 Purissima Concepcion, and that he and Padres 

 Vicente Fuster and Jose" Aroita angled as they 

 planned there can be little doubt, as man can- 

 not live by bread alone, and there was an abund- 

 ance of trout, long willow rods growing on trees, 

 and worms for the digging. 



The last mission, for there were several at- 

 tempts, in the Canada, was built near the river, 

 and was a solid buttressed pile of adobe, plas- 

 tered on the outside. It had a corridor three 

 hundred feet long where the padres and neo- 

 phytes sat in the cool of the summer evenings. 

 To-day eighteen of the pillars are standing, still 

 showing the fine Moorish arches, which have sur- 

 vived time and numerous earthquake shocks. La 

 Purissima is a ruin to-day, neglected, deserted, 



