exists among their descendants to the present time." So far as can be
known, the seekers have never found anything of value. It seems, indeed,
unlikely that the Fathers at any of the Missions ever could have amassed
any sum of money that would be much worth secreting. Saving anything out
of their meager stipend of four hundred dollars per year would have been
out of the question, even if the sum had been paid in money, in full,
and regularly, none of which desirable conditions seems to have been
met; while as to hoarding from the proceeds of the industries carried on
at the Missions, although the returns must have been large, the expense
of caring for a family of a thousand or so Indians must have been
proportionately heavy. And in addition there are to be reckoned the
exactions of the provincial Government, which seems to have looked upon
the Missions generally as a sort of providential and inexhaustible milch
cow. So that the latest defender of the Padres, the learned Father
Zephyrin Engelhardt, is probably justified in holding that their riches
were all of unworldly metal, and consisted only in "their
conscientiousness, industry, economy, and abstemiousness." Such
intangible valuables, it may be remarked, if they could be recovered by
delving, would certainly not have proved, in the estimation of the
delvers, a satisfactory reward.

The Mission of San Fernando, some twenty miles northwest of Los Angeles,
has more than once been the scene of these unhopeful quests. The
visitor, who might be curious concerning sundry excavations noticed in
the foundations of the massive adobe walls, would be told by the old
Mexican who acted as custodian of the ruin--it is hardly more than that
--that they were made by "malos hombres, ladrones, que buscaban dinero";
and, with a shrug, "Tontos! no cogieron no mas que polvo, mucho polvo,
mucho trabajo" (bad men, thieves, who were looking for money. Fools!
they got nothing but dust, plenty of dust and plenty of work). And with