CHAPTER I.THE CITY IN THE WILDERNESS.
"What, are you stepping westward ?" "Yea." * * * * * Yet who would stop or fear to advance, Though home or shelter there was none, With such a sky to lead him on!" -- WORDSWORTH.
"Ah! cool night wind, tremulous stars, Ah! glimmering water, Fitful earth murmur, Dreaming woods!" -- ARNOLD.
In A.D.sixteen hundred and ninety-two, a few Franciscan monks began to build a city.

The site chosen was a lovely wilderness hundreds of miles away from civilization on every side, and surrounded by savage and warlike tribes.

But the spot was as beautiful as the garden of God.

It was shielded by picturesque mountains, watered by two rivers, carpeted with flowers innumerable, shaded by noble trees joyful with the notes of a multitude of singing birds.

To breathe the balmy atmosphere was to be conscious of some rarer and finer life, and the beauty of the sunny skies--marvellous at dawn and eve with tints of saffron and amethyst and opal--was like a dream of heaven.
One of the rivers was fed by a hundred springs situated in the midst of charming bowers.