One beautiful summer day while walking about the San Carlos Mission Garden, Junipero Serra pondered over the wonderful progress of California both in the spiritual and material order; filled with joy the good priest blessed the land, and made a solemn promise to celebrate one hundred masses for the future peace and prosperity of California, moreover he promised to begin the fulfillment of his promise on the following November, twenty-fourth, feast of Saint Charles, the patron saint of the mission. Soon after, the venerable Serra was overtaken by his last illness and went to his reward before November, the twenty-fourth. But every year on the eve of the feast of Saint Charles just before midnight a ghostly procession wended its way to San Carlos Mission, for all the missionaries, Spaniards, or their descendants who had ever lived in California would arise from their graves and with them all the Christian Indians of the mission towns joined the "ghostly throng" to San Carlos where Junipero Serra would arise from his tomb and celebrate mass while the spirits sang their ancient hymns, after which all the scene vanished like silver fumes of smoke, and this continued for one hundred years. This most unlikely legend has been told in beautiful Spanish and English poetry, and for all its unlikelihood has found its way with its weird charm into many homes. A True Story Somewhere in the eighteen fifties a non-catholic of very irreligious character, made targets of the eyes of a statue of Saint Benedict, belonging to San Carlos Mission, taking advantage of the neglected condition of the place at the time. A few days after this proceeding the man was struck blind. This incident is no legend, but within the remembrance of many old residents of Monterey. The unfortunate man later acknowledged that his calamity was a direct visitation of Almighty God for his gross and intentional irreverence to the image of a saint. The writer refrains from giving the name of this man who has long ere this passed to the "Great Beyond" but many Montereyans, who will read this sketch will know it. Countless stories and legends of mission times are told and written without the least foundation for veracity, for example the story of "The Lost Pearls of Loretto;" others are founded on facts but distorted beyond recognition. Still this is not startling in a land as full of sentiment and romance as California, where so many writers, (most of them "New-comers") have given vent to their poetical imaginations, and it is not hard to believe that the eventful history of the state contained many authentic stories, and legends with some ground of truth. Hymn to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary [6]. "Para dar vida mortal A Un Dios Autor de la vida Sois Maria concebida Sin pecado original."