[Illustration: CORRIDOR, SAN FERNANDO MISSION From Photograph by Pillsbury]
It was a brilliant day, despite a dark cloud-curtain whose fringes hovered over the peaks of the rugged mountains in the north toward which we were rapidly coursing. We swept along the narrow valley—then a desert, cactus-studded plain—reaching on our left to low, green hills which stood in sharp outline against the deep azure of the sky. On the right, closer at hand, were low foothills, dominated by the distant mountains—their summits white with snow and touched in places by clouds of dazzling brilliance. Directly in front of us we saw the glistening phalanx of a summer shower, which rapidly advanced to meet us, giving us barely time to raise our cape top before it was upon us. Such a rain in our home state would have meant liquid roads and constant danger, but on this perfect highway it only heightened our enjoyment as our steadily purring engine carried us along the smooth wet surface. The green hills to the left and the cloudless sky above them seemed doubly glorious through the crystal curtain of the falling raindrops.
By the time we reached the village of San Fernando, the rain had ceased and we paused to inquire the whereabouts of the mission. We saw about us at the time a straggling, unsubstantial-looking hamlet which bore little resemblance to the smart, well-improved town that greeted us a year later—but so it often is in California. Then a new double boulevard with a parked center stretched away to the southeast—the work of an enterprising land company—with the inviting sign, "Speed limit one hundred miles per hour," but we were content with a fraction of this generous figure. The mission is about a mile out of the town and is best approached by the new boulevard, since this gives the advantage of a little distance for the front view, which the public road, directly passing, does not allow. Before you see the building itself you will note the two giant palms, over a century old, and perhaps a hundred feet high—all that remain of the many planted by the monks.
The structure is long, low, solid-looking—utterly devoid of artistic touches save the graceful, rounded arches of the long "portello" and the simple grille-work of wrought iron that still covers a few of the windows—work of the rude artisans of a hundred years ago. The old tile roof is the glory of San Fernando; the huge, semicircular tiles are time-stained to a color combination to delight the eye of an artist. Moss greens, silver grays, dull reds, and soft browns predominate, blending together in a most pleasing manner. Back from the mission extends a row of old-time living apartments, now little more than shapeless heaps of adobe, while the huge church, a little farther to the rear, seems approaching the final stages of dissolution. It was once a massive structure, built as well as loving care and endless industry could do—walls five or six feet in thickness, bound together at the top by heavy beams perhaps fifteen inches square. Traces of the ancient decorations appear, though they are nearly effaced by the weather, to which they have been long exposed. Apparently the earthquake began the work of ruin and long neglect has done the rest.