PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
355 
ruin of the presidios, and of the whole of the district. Indeed, with 
the exception of two pueblos, containing about seven hundred persons, 
and a few farm houses widely scattered over the country, there are no Nov. 
1 •! il • • 1 0^0. 
other buildings to the northward of Monterey : thus, while the missions 
furnish the means of subsistence to the presidios, the body of men 
they contain keeps the wild Indians in check, and prevents their making 
incursions on the settlers. 
Each mission has fifteen square miles of ground allotted to it. The 
buildings are variously laid out, and adapted in size to the number of 
Indians which they contain ; some are inclosed by a high wall, as at S4n 
Carlos, while others consist merely of a few rows of huts, built with 
sun-burnt mud-bricks; many are whitewashed and tiled, and have 
a neat and comfortable appearance. It is not, however, every hut that 
has a white face to exhibit, as that in a great measure depends upon 
the industry and good conduct of the family who possess it, who are 
in such a case supplied with lime for the purpose. It is only the 
married persons and the officers of the establishment who are allowed 
these huts, the bachelors and spinsters having large places of their own, 
where they are separately incarcerated every night. 
To each mission is attached a well-built church, better decorated in 
the interior than the external appearance of some would lead a stranger 
to suppose : they are well supplied with costly dresses for processions 
and feast days, to strike with admiration the senses of the gazing Indians, 
and on the whole are very respectable establishments. In some of these 
are a few tolerable pictures, among many bad ones; and those who have 
been able to obtain them are always provided with representations of 
hell and paradise ; the former exhibiting in the most disgusting manner 
all the torments the imagination can fancy, for the purpose of striking 
terror into the simple Indians, who look upon the performance with fear 
and trembling. Such representations may perhaps be useful in ex- 
hibiting to the dull senses of the Indians what could not be conveyed 
in any other way, and so far they are desirable in the mission ; but 
to an European the one is disgusting, and the other ludicrous. 
Each establishment is under the management of two priests if possible, 
who in Upper California belong to the mendicant order of San Francisco. 
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