324 Recreations of a Sportsman 



a few, when they saw the religion of the Span- 

 iards thrown down, thought it a vengeance of 

 their gods for deserting their own religion. A 

 new mission was built over the river, but drought 

 nearly killed all the cattle, in 1816, and in 1818 

 the houses of the neophytes were destroyed ; and 

 then, or in 1824, the Indians rebelled, and the 

 massacre of that year occurred. Troops were 

 sent from Monterey and defeated them, and after 

 some time order was restored. In 1819 they had 

 a good year and raised ten thousand bushels of 

 corn, but the Indians were doomed, and in 1835 

 there were but four hundred. The mission as 

 late as the time of the secularization was valued 

 at $60,000. There was a library of Spanish and 

 Italian volumes, valued at f 1100. In 1834 the 

 smallpox killed the last of the Indians; so it 

 took the white man with the appliances of civil- 

 ization just about fifty years to wipe out the 

 native race of the region, and their monument 

 is that old ruin." 



The old mission, to-day a sorry pile, was sold 

 by Governor Pio Pico to John Temple for a few 

 hundred dollars, and to-day is the property of 

 the Union Oil Company, a rival of the Stand- 

 ard Oil, which will aid in preserving it. The 

 mission as it stands is an interesting and pa- 

 thetic ruin ; a long one story adobe, the roof 

 partly broken in, the abode of bats, lizards, owls, 

 and other lovers of desolation. Seekers after 



