Pause upon the gentle hillside, view San Carlos by the sea 'Gainst pale light a shape Morisco wrought in faded tapestry. 'Neath Mt. Carmel's brooding shadow, peaceful lies the storied pile, And the white-barred river near it sings a requiem all the while.
Where were roofs of tiles or thatches, roughest mounds mark every side, And where once the busy courtyard searching winds find crevice wide.
AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL, in _A California Pilgrimage._
In fifteen years the Mission of San Juan Bautista had erected one of the most beautiful and ornate chapels in Alta California, which, together with the necessary buildings for the padres, living rooms and dormitories for the neophytes, storehouses and corrals for the grain and cattle, formed three sides of a patio two hundred feet square, with the corrals leading away beyond. The Indians, with only a few teachers and helpers, had done all this work.
MRS. A.S.C. FORBES, in _Mission Tales in the Days of the Dons._
From his (the Indian's) point of view there is perhaps love; even, it may be, romance. Much depends upon the standpoint one takes. The hills that look high from the valley, seem low looking down from the mountain. * * * For the world over, under white skin or skin of bronze-brown, the human heart throbs the same; for we are brothers--aye, brothers all!
IDAH MEACHAM STROBRIDGE, in _Loom of the Desert._
We had seen the spire of the Episcopal Church, which forms so pleasing a feature in the bosom of the valley, pale and fade from sight; the lofty walls of the old Mission of San Gabriel were no longer visible Suddenly from out the silence and gathering shades fell upon our ears a chime so musical and sweet, so spiritually clear and delicate, that had honest John Bunyan heard it he might well have deemed himself arrived at the land of Beulah. * * * It was the hour of vespers at the Old Mission.
BEN C. TRUMAN, in _Semi-Tropical California._
The Mission San Gabriel and its quadrangle of buildings made a beautiful picture. It nestled against distant hills, and neither stood out from the dim background nor entirely melted within it. It attracted the eye--this pink, yellow-gray of the little stone church crowned with dull-reddish tile, and supported by a bulwark of quaint buttresses. The picture was perfect--but since then the chill hands of both temblor and tempest have touched rudely the charm and blighted the pride of all of the California Missions--San Gabriel Archangel.