THE MISSION DOLORES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LI, Issue 9081, 2 May 1906, Page 6

THE MISSION DOLORES.

The Dolores Mission Church, which, we are informed, has survived both earth quake and fire, is an historical relio of romantic interest. Its builders builded better than they knew.- It was built of adobe in 1776 by the Franciscans as one of the chain of missions which they established in Upper California. . Twentyone missions all were built, on beautiful sitesi on or near the coast, and the Franciscans throve until the separation of Mexico from Spain dealt them a deathblow. Readers of Bret Harte know well the lines he wrote on the Dolores Mission: —

Bells of the. past, whose long-forgotten music . Still fills the wide expanse, Tinging the sober twilight of the present With color of romance. I hear you call, and see the. sun descending i

On rock and wave and sand, As down the coast the 'mission voices blending Girdle the heathen land. Within the'eirele of your incantation No blight nor mildew falls'; Nor fierce uniest, nor lust, nor low ambition Passes those airy walls.

Nearly every visitor to San Francisco visits this, the oldest landmark of the city. Beside it is a neglected graveyard, all that is left of a cemetery of 10,000 dead, mosfe of whom were taken to a new resting place as the advance of the' living encroached on their domain. Thick shrubbery and weeds choke this graveyard now, and a tangled mass of laurel, wild roses, and ivy impedes the explorer. Here lies the first Governor of Victoria, and tfhe first Vicar General, and not far from the men cxc" cuted by the Vigilance Committe© of the fifties. But all is neglect, and one who describes the place hopes tHiat it will re. main so, for it is of the past, and should retain tlie marks of the past- "One stumbles over sunken pieces of stone, afcd fallen railings/ and the tangled meshes of vines and sometimes this decadence is moie ' touching. than care. The whole is harmonious, and I, for one, would not wish the old mission graveyard cared for or altered in any way. Let "Nature,, the elements, and time, nvaik the' flight of years without assistance or deterrence from man." It is sad to "have to record tfoat owing to the desecration of souvenir-hunt-ers only the privileged visitor is allowed to enter this historic place.