[Illustration:  ENTRANCE TO SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO CHAPEL.]

[Illustration:  INNER COURT AND RUINED ARCHES, MISSION SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO.]

[Illustration:  BELLS OF MISSION SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO.]

There are still several interesting relics; among others, two instruments, doubtless Indian-made, used during the Easter services.  One is a board studded with handle-like irons, which, when moved rapidly from side to side, makes a hideous noise.  Another is a three-cornered box, on which are similar irons, and in this a loose stone is rattled In the service called “las tinieblas,”—­the utter darkness,—­expressive of the darkness after the crucifixion, when the church is absolutely without light, the appalling effect of these noises, heightened by the clanking of chains, is indescribable.  In proof of the tireless industry of the priests and Indians of their charge, there are to be found at San Juan many ruins of the aqueducts, or flumes, some of brick, others of wood, supported across ravines, which conveyed the water needed to irrigate the eighty acres of orchard, vineyard, and garden that used to be surrounded by an adobe wall.  Reservoirs, cisterns, and zanjas of brick, stone, and cement are seen here and there, and several remnants of the masonry aqueducts are still found in the village.

CHAPTER XVII

SANTA CLARA DE ASIS

Rivera delayed the founding of San Francisco and Santa Clara for reasons of his own; and when, in September, 1776, he received a letter from Viceroy Bucareli, in which were references clearly showing that it was supposed by the writer that they were already established, he set to work without further delay, and went with Padre Pena, as already related.  The Mission was duly founded January 12, 1777.  A square of seventy yards was set off and buildings at once begun.  Cattle and other Mission property were sent down from San Francisco and San Carlos, and the guard returned.  But it was not long before the Indians developed an unholy love for contraband beef, and Moraga and his soldiers were sent for to capture and punish the thieves.  Three of them were killed, but even then depredations occasionally continued.  At the end of the year there had been sixty-seven baptisms, including eight adults, and twenty-five deaths.

The present is the third site occupied by Santa Clara.  The Mission was originally established some three miles away, near Alviso, at the headwaters of the San Francisco Bay, near the river Guadalupe, on a site called by the Indians So-co-is-u-ka (laurel wood).  It was probably located there on account of its being the chief rendezvous of the Indians, fishing being good, the river having an abundance of salmon trout.  The Mission remained there only a short time, as the waters rose twice in 1779, and washed it out.  Then the padres removed, in 1780-1782, and built about 150 yards southwest of the present broad-gauge (Southern