The building looks very quaint in the midst of
the modern life which surrounds it. It is a monument of by-gone days
with its adobe walls and tiled roof. Its front has in it a suggestion
of an Egyptian temple. Its architecture is Spanish and Mexican and old
Californian combined. You can not fail to carry away its picture in
your memory, for without any effort on your part it is photographed on
your mind for the remainder of your days. These old Mission buildings
of California and of Mexico too are all very similar in their
construction. Some have the tower which reminds you of the Minaret
of a mosque. I fancy, as the idea of the Mission building with its
rectangular grounds, generally walled, came from Spain, that the
mosque, with its square enclosure and houses for its attendants, was
its model. The Moors of Spain have left their impress behind them
in architecture as well as in other things. They borrowed from
Constantinople, and the City of the Golden Horn has extended its
influence in one way and another over all the civilised world. But
Dolores is crumbling, and its services, still held, and its "Bells,"
of which Bret Harte sang so sweetly years ago, can not arrest its
decay.
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