TRAVELS IN THE CALIFORNIAS. 
Ill 
penitence ; but their faces do not indicate any decided con¬ 
sciousness of the blistering foothold on which they stand. 
On the contrary, they wear rather the quiet aspect of persons 
who love their ease, and have an indolent kind of pleasure in 
the scenes around them. On the other side, near the door of 
the confessional, is a picture of Hell. The Devil and his staff 
are represented in active service. The flames of his furnace 
are curling around his victims, with a broad red glare, that 
would have driven Titian to madness. The old Monarch 
himself appears hotly engaged in wrapping serpents of fire 
around a beautiful female figure, and his subalterns, with flam¬ 
ing tridents, are casting torments on others, whose sins are 
wrnrthy of less honorable notice. Immediately before the 
altar is a trap-door, opening into the vaults, where are buried 
the missionary Padres. Over the altar are many rich images 
of the saints. Among them is that of San Francisco, the 
patron of the missions of Upper California. Three silver 
candlesticks, six feet high, and a silver crucifix of the same 
height, with a golden image of the Saviour suspended on it, 
stand within the chancel. To the left of the altar is the sa¬ 
cristy, or priest’s dressing-room. It is eighteen feet square, 
splendidly carpeted, and furnished with a vrardrobe, chairs, 
mirrors, tables, ottoman, &c. 
In an adjoining room of the same size are kept the para¬ 
phernalia of worship. Among these are a receptacle of the 
host, of massive gold in pyramidal form, and weighing at 
least ten pounds avoirdupois, and a convex lens set in a block 
of gold, weighing a number of pounds, through which, on cer¬ 
tain occasions, the light is thrown so as to give the appearance 
of an eye of consuming fire. 
A door in the eastern wall of the church leads from the 
foot of the chancel to the cemetery. It is a small piece of 
ground enclosed by a high wall, and consecrated to the burial 
of those Indians who die in the faith of the Catholic Church. 
It is curiously arranged. Walls of solid masonry, six feet 
