The present ruins are the "new" buildings on the site of the old, completed in 1784, the walls of adobe four feet thick, the doorways and windows of burnt tiles.

These half-cylindrical plates of hard-burnt clay were used to protect the inmates from the sun and the burning arrows of the Indians, and are now greatly valued as relics.
In front is the orchard of three hundred olive trees, more than a century old, still bearing a full crop, and likely to do so for centuries to come.

As the Indians disliked work much, and church services more, they were encouraged in both matters by rather forcible means, as the Irishman "enticed" the pig into his pen with a pitchfork.
We "tourists" who, dismounting from our carriages, view with sentimental reverence the picturesque ruins, the crumbling arches, the heavy bells now silent but mutely telling a wondrous story of the past, and tiptoe quietly through the damp interiors, gazing at pictures of saints and of hell and paradise, dropping our coins into the box at the door, and going out duly impressed to admire the architecture or the carving, or the general fine effect against the sky of fleckless blue--we picture these sable neophytes coming gladly, bowing in devout homage, delighted to learn of God and Duty, and cheerfully cooeperating with the good priests who had come so far to teach them.

In 1827 the San Diego mission had within its boundaries an Indian population of 1500, 10,000 head of cattle, 17,000 sheep, and more than 1000 horses.

But Mr.Robinson tells us that the Indians were dragged to service, were punished and chained if they tried to escape, and that it was not unusual to see numbers of them driven along by a leader and forced with a whip-lash into the doors of the sanctuary.
It is said that they were literally enslaved and scared into submission by dreadful pictures of hell and fear of everlasting torment.