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Updated: May 25, 2025
It had never occurred to him to go forth where he might see the fields clad in tender green, the waters murmuring in the acequias; the soft blue sky dotted with white, fleecy islets, the dark green hills where stood the windmills swinging their arms upon the summits, the abrupt sierras forming a rose-colored background to a landscape which everywhere smiled and whispered sweetly, as in the days when, it astounded the ancient navigators, causing them to name Majorca "the Fortunate Isle"! When, thanks to his marriage, he should acquire a fortune, and could redeem the fine estate of Son Febrer, he would spend a part of the year there, as his forefathers had done, leading the healthy, rural life of a gran señor, munificent and honored.
There are also ruins galore, the cave and cliff dwellings, crumbled pueblos, extensive acequias, painted rocks, the casa grande and old Spanish missions.
Quiet and peaceable, they have no fears except from their enemies, the Apaches, and are very industrious, much more so than the lower order of Mexicans, and live far more comfortably. It is astonishing with what precision they construct their acequias irrigating canals some of them, the acequias madre, of very large size, and without the use of levelling apparatus, but simply by the eye.
Similar lines may likewise be traced along other northern tributaries of the Salt or the Gila, which may be found to indicate early migration stages. They were built upon the most fertile tracts of the valley, where were signs of acequias and of cultivation. The walls were of solid masonry, of rectangular form, some twenty or thirty paces in length, and yet remaining ten or fifteen feet in height.
Besides the frontiersmen in the fort were two women, two children and two slaves. The Mission was arranged in a great quadrangle fifty-four by 154 yards with acequias or irrigation ditches both to front and rear. The garrison had succeeded in getting inside the walls about thirty bushels of corn and eighty beef cattle; so there was no danger of famine. The big courtyard was in the rear.
There was a hill close to the town, from which we had a perfect view of the place. The surrounding country is level, utterly devoid of trees, except the willows and cotton-woods that line the Los Angeles Creek and the acequias, or ditches, which lead from it. The space of ground cultivated in vineyards seemed about five miles by one, embracing the town.
Clear, sparkling water rippled in tiny acequias through the front yards of each, and so furnished the moisture needed for the life of various little shrubs and flowering plants. The surroundings were at least "sociable," and there was companionship and jollity, with an occasional tiff to keep things lively.
There was a hill close to the town, from which we had a perfect view of the place. The surrounding country is level, utterly devoid of trees, except the willows and cotton-woods that line the Los Angeles Creek and the acequias, or ditches, which lead from it. The space of ground cultivated in vineyards seemed about five miles by one, embracing the town.
As the streams laugh down from the mountains, ranches grow more and more frequent. It is characteristic of the West that you don't cross the acequias on bridges. You cross them on two planks, with risk to your car if the driver swerve at the steering wheel. All the houses are red earth adobe, thick of wall to shut out both heat and cold, with a smell of juniper wood in the fireplaces of each room.
By the shades of Knickerbocker's History of New York I seem now to have gotten at the beginning; but patience, the sun is no detail out in the arid country. It does more things than blister your nose. It is the despair of the painter as it colors the minarets of the Bad Lands which abound around Adobe, and it dries up the company gardens if they don't watch the acequias mighty sharp.
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