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Chapter 2: Spanish Missions
wrote, "There was no water.” They had to
explore the land slowly “so as to regulate the
marches, according to the distance to water-
ing places.” When they failed to find water,
they prayed fervently.
2
Luckily, the natives
they encountered steered them to pools and
springs, where the explorers noted “well
made”
pots (ollas) storing water.
3
Back at the harbor, another padre, Father Juan
Crespí
wrote about the body of
water now
known as the San Diego River.
We found there a good-sized river
which the ships use as a watering
station. This river has a very large,
broad plain on its banks, which seems
to be of very good soil, with many
willows, some poplars and some
alders … If the river is permanent it
may prove in ti
me to be the best of
those discovered in all
California.
4
Later he wrote again with what
must have
been both disappointment and astonishment:
… [W]e are much troubled because
the river, which flows through the plain
and which has very good, clear water,
as we have observed every day, is
di
minishing to such a degree that
although two weeks ago when we
arrived we saw it flowing with an abun-
dant stream, it has now di
minished so
that it hardly runs at all and they say
that they can cross it dry shod. If
this continues it will be necessary to
look for another place to establish the
mission and obtain irrigation.
5
THE “UPSIDE-DOWN” RIVER
Father Crespí
was soon to
observe that the San Diego
River became an “upside-
down river.” As a later
resident explained, “It runs
upside down in the summer
with the sand on top.”
6
The Fathers dug wells in the
sands of the river bed and
carried their drinking water in
skins up to the slope where
they established Mission San Diego de Alcalá
on Presidio Hill.
The first order of business for the mission was
to produce food, since they were too remote
to i
mport even bare essentials. Having come
from Spain's arid cli
mate, they knew the
i
mportance of planting crops near a reliable
water supply ... which proved to be a
Cave Couts drawing
of
Mission San Diego de Alcalá, 1846
The San Diego Historical
Society