The Field of the Cloth of God 325 



treasure have dug here and there; gophers and 

 squirrels have undermined it, and some of the 

 eighteen pillars that supported the heavy tiled 

 roof are down, and others are broken. The 

 building is about three hundred feet long, the 

 corridors fifty feet wide, and the old mission, 

 once a principality, a part of the evolution of 

 Spanish America, is well worthy a visit in the 

 valley of mustard in the heart of the Coast 

 Range. 



" We have one thing here besides mustard," 

 said a townsman, " and that 's trout. The Santa 

 Ynez is one of the most attractive streams in 

 the State. In its upper reaches it is filled with 

 rainbow trout, and down below, the steelheads 

 are running." 



That this was true any one could see, as in 

 the little laguna at the mouth of the river, an- 

 glers were wading about in hip-boots, casting 

 carefully with small spoons, occasionally hook- 

 ing a large fish, playing him literally all over 

 the laguna. Salmon trout or steelhead was the 

 game. Fishes as large as twenty pounds have 

 been taken here; fish that leap four or five feet 

 into the air when hooked, and give an angler 

 fine play. 



This stream is about the southern limit of 

 steelhead on the California coast, the fish being 

 seen at its best in the Russian and other rivers 

 north of San Francisco. 



