PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
379 
and have a chapel of their own, at which one of the priests of the mis- CHAP. 
• • ^ ^ XIIT 
Sion occasionally officiates. 
About eighteen miles from Sdnta Clara, the party alighted upon Nov. 
the banks of a limpid stream, the first they had seen in their ride. It 
was too favourable a spot to be passed, and placing some milk and pears, 
which had been furnished by the hospitable priests at the mission, 
under the cool shade of an aliso-tree, they regaled themselves for a 
few minutes, and then resumed their journey. At the distance of 
eight leagues from S4nta Clara, they passed some remarkable hills near 
the coast named El ojo del cache ; and a few miles further on, they de- 
scended into the plain of Las Lldgas, so called from a battle which took 
place between the first settlers and the Indians, in which many of the 
former were wounded. Stopping towards the extremity of this fertile 
plain at some cottages, named Ranchas de las aninias, the only habita- 
tions they had seen since the morning, they dined upon some jerk 
beef, which, according to the old custom in this and other Spanish 
colonies, was served in silver dishes. Silver cups and spoons were also 
placed before our travellers, offering a singular incongruity with the 
humble wooden benches, that were substituted for chairs, and with the 
whole arrangement of the room, which, besides the board of smoking 
jerk beef, contained beds for the family, and a horse harnessed to a 
flour mill. 
Leaving Llano de las Llagas, they ascended a low range of hills, 
and arrived at a river appropriately named Eio de los Paxaros, from the 
number of wild ducks which occasionally resort thither. The banks of 
this river are thickly lined with wood, and being very steep in many 
places, the party wound, with some difficulty, round the trunks of the 
trees and over the inequalities of the ground ; but their Californian 
steeds, untrammelled with shoes, and accustomed to all kinds of ground, 
never once stumbled. They rode for some time along the banks of 
tliis river, which, though so much broken, were very agreeable, and 
crossing the stream a few miles lower down, they left it to make its 
way towards the sea in a south-west direction, and themselves entered 
upon the Llano de San Juan, an extensive plain surrounded by 
mountains. It should have been told, before the party reached thus 
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