Belonging to the mission are two gardens, inclosed by high adobe walls.  After dinner we visited one of these.  The area of the inclosure contains fifteen or twenty acres of ground, the whole of which was planted with fruit trees and grape-vines.  There are about six hundred pear trees, and a large number of apple and peach trees, all bearing fruit in great abundance and in full perfection.  The quality of the pears is excellent, but the apples and peaches are indifferent.  The grapes have been gathered, as I suppose, for I saw none upon the vines, which appeared healthy and vigorous.  The gardens are irrigated with very little trouble, from large springs which flow from the hills a short distance above them.  Numerous aqueducts, formerly conveying and distributing water over an extensive tract of land surrounding the mission, are still visible, but as the land is not now cultivated, they at present contain no water.

The mission buildings cover fifty acres of ground, perhaps more, and are all constructed of adobes with tile roofs.  Those houses or barracks which were occupied by the Indian families are built in compact squares, one story in height.  They are generally partitioned into two rooms, one fronting on the street, the other upon a court or corral in the rear.  The main buildings of the mission are two stories in height, with wide corridors in front and rear.  The walls are massive, and, if protected from the winter rains, will stand for ages.  But if exposed to the storms by the decay of the projecting roofs, or by leaks in the main roof, they will soon crumble, or sink into shapeless heaps of mud.  I passed through extensive warehouses and immense rooms, once occupied for the manufacture of woollen blankets and other articles, with the rude machinery still standing in them, but unemployed.  Filth and desolation have taken the place of cleanliness and busy life.  The granary was very capacious, and its dimensions were an evidence of the exuberant fertility of the soil, when properly cultivated under the superintendence of the padres.  The calaboose is a miserable dark room of two apartments, one with a small loop-hole in the wall, the other a dungeon without light or ventilation.  The stocks, and several other inventions for the punishment of offenders, are still standing in this prison.  I requested permission to examine the interior of the church, but it was locked up, and no person in the mission was in possession of the key.  Its length I should suppose is from one hundred to one hundred and twenty feet, and its breadth between thirty and forty, with small exterior pretensions to architectural ornament or symmetry of proportions.

Returning from our rambles about the mission, we found that our landlady had been reinforced by an elderly woman, whom she introduced as “mi madre,” and two or three Indian muchachas, or girls, clad in a costume not differing much from that of our mother Eve.  The latter were obese in their figures, and the mingled perspiration and filth standing upon their skins were any thing but agreeable to the eye.  The two senoras, with these handmaids near them, were sitting in front of the house, busily engaged in executing some needlework.