erosion made here by the rivers of a distant age; for these gashes
are the result of rushing water, and every stone upon this small
plateau has been worn round and smooth by friction with its fellows,
tossed, whirled, and beaten by the waves of centuries. Strange, is
it not, that though, like many other areas of our continent, this
region was once fashioned and completely ruled by water, at present
it has practically none; and men must often bring the precious liquid
fifty miles to crown the soil with beauty and fertility.

[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE TABLE-LAND.]

[Illustration: PACHANGO INDIANS AT HOME.]

[Illustration: A CHRISTIANIZED INDIAN.]

[Illustration: THE MISSION BELLS.]

The old town of San Diego, four miles north of the present city, is
now almost abandoned. Only a dozen adobe buildings kept in fair
repair, and as many more in ruins, mark the site. The little chapel
is still used for worship, and from an uncouth wooden frame outside
its walls hang two of the old Mission bells which formerly rang out
the Angelus over the sunset waves. My guide carelessly struck them
with the butt of his whip, and called forth from their consecrated
lips of bronze a sound which, in that scene of loneliness, at first
seemed like a wail of protest at the sacrilege, and finally died away
into a muffled intonation resembling a stifled sob. Roused by the
unexpected call, there presently appeared an Indian who looked as if
he might have been contemporary with Methuselah. No wrinkled leaf
that had been blown about the earth for centuries could have appeared