San Ángel

“ Angel road, which left the San Antonio causeway near the tête du pont, and continued up the valley of the Churubusco river, in a south-westerly course, by way of Cojohuacan, or Coyoacan, as it is now usually written, and San Angel, to the factory of Magdalena, about nine miles from Churubusco. ”

“ Angel Island, the Americanization of La Isla de los Ángeles (the isle of the angels) , belies its name, since it has been devoted to the quite un-angelic business of quarantine station of San Francisco.
Palou, in speaking of the expedition of 1776, says: “They moved to the island which is in front of the mouth, which they called Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles [Our Lady of the Angels] , on which they found good anchorage, and going on land, they found plenty of wood and water.” ”

“ They reached the bridge of San Angelo, and studied for a short time the fine effect of the moonlight shining on the turbid, slow-flowing Tiber, and lighting up the heavy pile of the castle of San Angelo. Then they reached the Piazza of Saint Peter's, and here the scene was imperial. Out and in through the semi-circular arcade of massive pillars the moonlight stole to sleep upon the soft-toned, gray old pavement, or was thrown in dancing, sparkling light from the two noble jets of water tossed in the clear night-air by the splashing fountains. ”

“ The wind is always still in the evenings, the sky is clear and we watch the moon rise behind the hill of San Angelo, or splendid lightning, flashing from fantastic clouds, illumine space. We listen to the singing of the people on the square, whilst they rest in careless enjoyment of the repose of evening and the fruits of the earth. By degrees they sink into silence, and all becomes still, except the splash of the little fountain near the old city-gate in the square and upon the ruins of which stands St. Antonio, as the patron saint of Sorrento. ”

“ No white angel ever floats more clearly before the eyes of those who look on the sculptor's finished work than before the eyes of Elizabeth appeared the shapes and hues of sounds which swept in gay or solemn procession through the windings of her father's horn, floating over the blue water, dissolving as the mist. ”

“ Dip to tranquil shores of jasper, where the watching angel beams.
But, behold! our eyes are human, and our way is paved with pain,
We can never find Hy-Brasil, never see its hills again!
Never look on bays of crystal, never bend the reverent knee
In the sight of Eden floating — floating on the sapphire sea!
Outre Mer
I see, as one in dreaming,
A broad, bright, quiet sea;
Beyond it lies a haven —
The only home for me.
Some men grow strong with trouble,
But all my strength is past,
And tired and full of sorrow,
I long to sleep at last. ”

“ The bells of the Mission are ringing, clear and strong, under the practiced hand of old Gregorio. Who can ring like he? And to-day, of all days, he is doing his best, for it is the fiesta of the blessed San Gabriel himself, and there are people come from all the towns of the valley, to say nothing of Los Angeles, to the fiesta. Not but what the saint has his day every year; but this particular day is a day of days, a fiesta of fiestas: for the Padre has arranged a procession in San Gabriel's honor, and what Mexican would not ride thirty miles to see a procession? ”

“ Can any one be surprised that we are approaching the city of Los Angeles? A bright river comes tumbling along under cliffs all hung with flowering creepers, and between banks that are beautiful with ferns and flowers, and the land widens out into cornfield and meadow; and away to right and left, lying under the hills and overflowing into all the valleys, are the vineyards, and orchards, and orangeries that make the City of Angels worthy of a king's envy and a people's pride. ”

“ The door of San Miguel—opposite to the College, or cloister of that name, in which dwelt all the Mozarabic priests who still survived when San Fernando entered Seville—is thrown wide open as the procession approaches, and a wonderful shimmering effect of light and shade is produced when the waving palms borne by the clergy move out from the dimness of the Cathedral into the blazing sunshine of the street. But I never follow the palms; one only gets lost in the crowd, and misses all the best of the picture. ”

“ I dare say that I visited the Mission of San Gabriel very soon after I arrived in Los Angeles; but it was then less than a century old, and so was important only because it was the place of worship of many natives. The Protestant denominations were not as numerous then as now, and nearly all of the population was Catholic. With the passing of the years, sentimental reverence for the Spanish Fathers has grown greater and their old Mission homes have acquired more and more the dignity of age. ”

“ If it be but for one brief moment let us ruminate the glories, the wealth, the beauty of mission joys, before the least cruel echoes of Secularization are heard. The sun of Franciscan and Spanish glory is still mounting the firmament higher and higher. The sky still wears Our Lady's blue 2 and no penitential purple has appeared with the departing rays of sunset, only the royal purple and gold which years before had made the scene a fairylike setting for the heavenset relief ship to San Diego and assured the noble enterprise of the exploration and christianizing of California. ”

“ SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO—THE PENANCE OF MAGDALENA
Slowly, very slowly, the greatest and most beautiful of the Missions of Alta California had risen among the swelling lomas of the valley of the San Juan. Brick by brick and stone by stone the simple Indian laborers, under the tutelage of the Fathers, had reared a structure which, in its way and place, might not unfitly be compared with those great cathedrals of Europe in which we see, as in a parable, how inward love and faith work out in material beauty. ”

“ Our memory of Los Angeles and the whole entourage of that garden spot will always be a vision of palms and flowers, of beautiful homes embowered in roses, of orange-trees in fruit and flower, and of a far-extended city whose future must be as magnificent as its present is beautiful.
We spent a delightful afternoon on our journey southward from Los Angeles to San Diego and Coronado Beach. We passed through the distinctive orange belt of Southern California, and the golden fruit was in evidence on every hand. Oranges lay on the ground. ”

“ The mission of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles was built on the right bank of the Rio San Pedro, about sixty leagues from Pitic. Nothing can equal the grandeur and originality of its position. Nothing can compare, in wild grandeur and imposing severity, with the majestically terrible landscape which presents itself to the vision, and fills the heart with terror and a melancholy joy, at the sight of the frightful and gloomy rocks which tower over the river like colossal walls and gigantic parapets, apparently formed by some convulsion of nature ”

“ When the Missions of the Concepcion, of San José, of San Juan, of San Francis of the Sword, now crumbling to inevitable decay, shall be only mounds in the midst of stunted trees and matted vines, when the exquisite carvings of their broad façades shall have turned to dust again, the traveller will stand before the Alamo with reverence, and enter, with uncovered head, the dim recesses of this altar-place of liberty. ”

“ Los Angeles, however, with all its charms, is only one small corner of Out-of-Door Land. The holy fathers of Mexico and old Spain found that out over a hundred years ago, when they started from Loreto, in Paja California, to make their mission pilgrimage up the Alta California coast. From San Diego and Los Angeles they headed northerly, establishing their mission stations a day’s journey apart. In sheltered valleys, on slopes that look far to seaward, by never-failing water courses, they planted the cross and marked out the boundaries of their holdings. ”

“ Then the bright moon rises and flings her silver veil over the mountains, and lights up the plains, glittering and quivering upon the old gray stones, and a sound of military music is heard in the distance far and faint. And all the bells are tolling; from old San Fernando that repeats himself like a sexagenarian; from the towers of the cathedral, from many a distant church and convent; and above the rumbling of carriages and the hum of the city, are heard the notes of a hymn, now rising, now falling on the ear, as a religious procession passes along to some neighbouring temple. ”

“ A superb frieze surrounds the entire nave, bearing in great Gothic letters an inscription narrating the foundation of the church. Everywhere the arms of Castile and Arragon, and the wedded ciphers of the Catholic kings. Statues of heralds start unexpectedly out from the face of the pillars. Fine as the church is, we cannot linger here long. The glory of San Juan is its cloisters. It may challenge the world to show anything so fine in the latest bloom and last development of Gothic art. ”

“ Here are old Spanish convents and churches, with their surroundings of vineyards, fig-trees, orange-groves, etc., as at Santa Barbara and Los Angelos—only better preserved—and the ride thither is a favorite excursion for San Franciscans and strangers. The sleepy old town is in vivid contrast, with the rush and whirl of the Golden Gate; and its soft and delicious air proves a soothing balm, to the invalid and the weak. A fair hotel furnished good entertainment, and the place seemed indeed like a haven of rest, after "roughing it" so in the interior. ”

“ The high, rugged mountains of Santa Clara and Santa Cruz, robed in deep-green chemisal and crowned with feathery redwoods, bounded the view on the south, and made a fitting frame for the glorious picture before us. What wonder that we gazed noon the enchanting scene, fairly reveling in the feast of beauty and sublimity nature had spread before us with such a lavish hand, until the gathering shadows of night admonished us that it was time to remount our impatient steeds and descend once more to the valley! ”

“ So, then, San Juan was "what you will." A man may fix his eye upon the little Mission cross which is always pointing to heaven and God; or he may pass through the shaded doors of the Casa Blanca, which, men say, give pathway into hell the shortest way.
Ignacio, having meditatively enjoyed his whiskey and listened smilingly to the tinkle of a mandolin in the patio under a grape-vine arbor, had rolled his cigarette and turned his back square upon the devil . ”

“ No one knows Los Angeles who does not climb to these sunny outlying heights, and roam and linger on them many a day. Nor, even thus lingering, will any one ever know more of Los Angeles than its lovely outward semblances and mysterious suggestions, unless he have the good fortune to win past the barrier of proud, sensitive, tender reserve, behind which is hid the life of the few remaining survivors of the old Spanish and Mexican régime. ”

“ It was yet too early to expect dinner at the Posada; and therefore, skirting the small straggling village of San Lorenzo, I climbed up among the defiles and ridges of the sierra that forms the back-ground to the monastery and its tributary village. The sun had already set, and dusk was creeping over the distant landscape; and, excepting the vast and magnificent building below, there was scarcely a trace of human existence, for a ridge of the sierra shut out the little village of San Lorenzo: and the only sound I heard, was the bell from the monastery. ”

“ I took care to be on the Paseo before sunset, that I might witness that impressive ceremony, called oracion,—now banished from Madrid and the northern parts of Spain, and found only in the provinces last occupied by the Moors. Nothing can be more imposing than this old usage: at the same instant that every church and convent bell in the city, peals forth the signal for prayer,—motion and conversation are suspended; the whole multitude stands still; every head is uncovered ”

“ Emigrants, when the phrensy of the mines has passed, will be strongly attracted to los Angeles, the capital of the southern department. It stands inland from San Pedro about eight leagues, in the bosom of a broad fertile plain, and has a population of two thousand souls. The San Gabriel pours its sparkling tide through its green borders. ”

“ Ciudad de los Angeles, or the City of the Angels, is situated a hundred and ten miles south of Santa Barbara, at the end of an immense plain, extending from the city twenty-five miles, to San Pedro, its port. This is the garden spot of California. Before the discovery of the gold mines, the City of the Angels was the largest town in the country. It contains about two thousand inhabitants, most of whom are wealthy rancheros, who dwell there to cultivate the grape. ”

“ Sierra, saw-toothed; an earthquake is a temblor.
San and Santa, the masculine and feminine form of saint.
As the men who laid out a part of New York evidently travelled with a classical dictionary, and named the towns from that, as Rome, Syracuse, Palmyra, Utica, so the devout Spanish explorer named the places where he halted by the name of the saint whose name was on the church calendar for that day. And we have San Diego (St. James) , San Juan (St. John) , San Luis, San José, San Pedro, Santa Inez, Santa Maria, Santa Clara, and, best of all, Santa Barbara, to which town we are now going. ”

“ The country is older, the Spanish names are more musical; orange and lemon are not grown for ornament, but as a principal crop; and the climate is of that genial mildness which is most to the taste of seekers for health.
Famed Los Angeles, City of the Angels, is the terminus of the first day's journey which brings us into it. The watering-place of Santa Monica and the important points of San Buenaventura and Santa Barbara are not far distant to the west, while San Diego lies at a moderate remove to the southward, near the Mexican frontier. ”