Like the English monks, the Spanish padres when locating their establishments always selected sites with pleasant surroundings and commanding views of beautiful scenery, always in the most fertile valleys and adjacent to lake or river. Many of the California missions are within a short distance of the Pacific, whose blue waters are often visible through the arcades, lending a crowning touch of beauty to the loveliness of the semi-tropical surroundings. And in sight of many of them snow-capped mountains rear their majestic forms against a sky matched only by that of Italy itself. Surrounding the buildings were fertile fields, with flowers, fruit trees, and palms, usually watered by irrigation as well as by winter rains, and, indeed, the Arcadia of the poets was well-nigh made a reality under the sway of the California padres. The missions were located, presumably, a day's journey apart, so that the traveler might find entertainment at the close of each day, for the hospitality of the Franciscan fathers never waned.
I shall give a short sketch of each of the missions as we reach them in course of our pilgrimage, and will therefore omit further historic details here. The building, as a rule, was done solidly and well; adobe, hard-burned brick, hewn stone, heavy timbers, and roof tiles being so skillfully combined that many of the structures are still in fair state of preservation in spite of winter rains, earthquake, and long neglect.
No doubt the equable climate has been a factor in retarding their decay. Adobe structures have naturally suffered most, but even these were so massively built that had it not been for earthquakes nearly all would still stand almost intact. This agency more than any other contributed to the ruined condition of the mission buildings. Several have been more or less restored and are in daily use, and it is to be hoped that all which are not past rehabilitation will finally be rescued from the fate which threatens them.
The old notion that the red man will not perform hard manual labor is contradicted in the history of mission building. The work was done by the natives under the direction of the padres—and hard work it was, for the stone had to be quarried and dressed, brick and tiles moulded and burned or dried in the sun, and heavy timbers brought many miles, often on the men's shoulders. Just how heavy some of these oaken beams were is shown by several in the San Fernando chapel, fifteen inches square and thirty or forty feet long. Some of the churches were roofed with arched stone vaults which must have required great labor and not a little architectural skill, though the latter was no doubt supplied by the monks.