as soon as San Carlos Mission was founded, the glorious march of El
Camino Real continued.

Mission San Antonio de Padua, the third mission, was established in July
1, 1771. The beauty of the spot and wonderful eagerness of the Indians
to receive baptism greatly touched Junipero Serra and the other two
Franciscan Fathers who accompanied him as well as some of the soldiers
who were in the party. To-day Mission San Antonio is almost in ruins,
but its very ruins are piles which speak of mystic beauty, and in the
days of mission glory San Antonio was one of the fairest of the
missions.

On returning to Carmelo, Junipero Serra filled the other missionaries
with joy over this latest conquest of souls, and sent messengers to
Fathers Somera and Cambon whom he had left in charge of the Mission at
San Diego, to establish a mission in southern California, which they
would name San Gabriel. The two Fathers, with ten soldiers as guards,
started a march northward until they came to the present sight of San
Gabriel, which they saw immediately was a good location for a mission,
particularly as a beautiful stream flowed through the Valley, and
wherever possible the Fathers chose a spot where there was water for the
mission orchards and gardens.

Here we may add that the Fathers had a system of irrigation by means of
ditches, traces of which may be seen to this day in the sites where
stood many of the old mission orchards. The fruits from these good
Fathers gardens were the fairest and most luscious that California has
ever seen, none of our lovely grapes compare with theirs, and their
olives were larger and better than any of which California boasts
to-day.