Los Angeles herald., 1891-01-02
CALIFORNIA MISSIONS.
a VETERAN TRAVELLERS PLEAS
ANT MEMORIES OF THEM.
A GLANCE at Those at San Buenaventura
and Santa Barbara-An Interesting
Sketch.

Major Ben q. Truman is writing a
series of articles for the New York
Times, entitled the California Mis-
sions," and we quote the following from
his fifth article:
Leaving dear old San Fernando and
proceeding up the coast, the next mis-
sion is that of San Buenaventura,
founded by Junipero Sierra in March,
1882, los years ago, the main building
still being ing in good state of preser-
walton. This old church is about 150
feet in length and thiry-fve feet in
width. The walls are six feet thick,
and are built with brick two-thirds up
and topped with adobe. On the 7th of
June, 1857, an earthquake racked the
structure considerably, causing the de-
struction Of the original roof and the
reeling of the tower which surmounts it
from perpendicular. A new (shingle)
roof was made to replace the old (tile)
one, and other portions of the building
underwent repairs.
ious and attractive. The original altar
and all of its glittering adornments are
in as good condition at present as they
were 100 years ago, while upon the walls
here and there and in inches are paint
ings and statuary, and many other OBJ
iects introduced by the early padres to
under their control. There still remain
o1 1le ~, <hr ~ inh
manufactured in Mexico, and the others
in Peru. Some three hundred-odd feet
of adjoining building are still standing
in good condition, while all around are
ruins of rancheria, CASTILLO, fountains,
and baths.
1.-The first padre of this mission was
Pedro Benito Camlon, who returned to
Spain in 1900. The last time 1 visited
the church the resident priest was the
Rev. John Comapla, a native OF Vich,
Spain,. who came to America in 1858,
since which time he has spent seven
years at San Luis Obispo, and more
than that time here. He seemed to me
to be very pious. but an altogether
delightful man and person of brilliant
attainments. spent day or two with
him twenty-three years ago, and l found
him good entertainer can call to
mind one of his dinners, which included
roasted quail stuffed with bacon and
ripe olives, brook trout fried in the
purest of olive oil, and . pot pie of cot
ton-tail rabbit and ripe olives, which
was made all the more delectable by q
dessert of strawberries swimming in a
heavy native claret wine and green
almonds sliced or minced in saucers of
old sherry.
"Father Comapla had a very good library
containing the works of Plato, Carlyle,
Macaulav, Scott, Cowper, and Gray,
and he pointed with marked respect to
thrse engravings, which adorned the walls
of his study-George Washington, Stone
wall Jackson, and Robert E. Lee-whom
he looked upon. so he informed me, as
great soldiers and good men. 1, He took
out of his wallet three pieces of poetry.
which he told me, were his favorities-
The Water Mill, Poe's Raven, and
Barbara Frietchie. After dinner one
day he took me to his garden and orchard,
where there were twenty acres of walnut,
almond, olive, pear and palm trees, and
watermelons weighing 100 pounds, corn
nineteen feet in height, castor bean and
elder bushes from a foot to eighteen
inches in diameter, pepper, acacia, and
magnolia trees, and squash which
weighed exactly 250 pounds. From this
garden he had green peas and strawber
ries every month in the year.
'The patron saint, as one may infer
from the name of the mission, is Buena-
ventura. San Buenaventura was an
eminent doctor of the church-a col
league of St. Thomas Aquinas-and was
born on the 14th of July-I do not know
the year, but it was about 525 years
ago: ,oo
Los Angeles, has the best-preserved and
best-looking mission church in the state,
and the only one in which there still
friar, with shaved head, and hood and
compare with Avila and San Sebastian.
It's bells came from medieval Spain. and
are composed of equal parts OF copper
and silver taken from Mexico. For
more than a hundred years these sweet
sounding bells have mingled their morn
ing melodies3with those of the linnet and
the thrush, and a combination of ex-
quisite diminuendoes have gone MUIR
muring through orchards that equal
those of Sorrento, and out upon an
ocean or channel as beautiful as the
Mediterranean sea. All around are un-
rivaled hillsides and sequestered sweeps
of lowlands, interlaced with vineyards
and groves of all varieties of nuts and
semi tropical fruits. There is BE-
witching tumble of adobe, Castilian and
Queen Anne in the architecture of Santa
Barbara. and an ola podrida of ocean,
forest, mountain and plain.
"The glorious climate of California
has made for itself permanent abiding
place here, and no signal service savant
has ever hung out the danger flag in this
ever-serene, ever-beautiful section, where
the climate is softer and more healthful
than the daintiest bit of Italy and South
ern France. There are homes and
churches and school houses festooned
with heliotrope and jasmine, that never
cease to bloom or freight the air with
their aromatic sweets. Fruits and flow
ers and vegetables grow and attain per-
fection every month in the year. Here is
the biggest grape vine in the world whose
trunk is thirty-four inches in circumfer-
ence, and whose branches cover an arbor
seventy-five feet square, and from which
have been taken five tons of grapes in a
single season. The oak and the syca-
more, the orange and the lemon, the
apple and the peach, the pear and the
plum, the lime and the pomegranate,
the pepper and the acacia, all grow har-