The roofs which, as I have intimated, proved as necessary to preserve the adobe as to afford protection from the semi-tropical sun, were generally covered with asphalt and were usually flat in order to keep the tar from running off. As well as I can recollect, Vicente Salsido--or Salcito, as his name was also written--who lived in or somewhere near Nigger Alley, was the only man then engaged in the business of mending pitch-roofs. When winter approached and the first rainfall produced leaks, there was a general demand for Salsido's services and a great scramble among owners of buildings to obtain them. Such was the need, in fact, that more than one family, drowned out while waiting, was compelled to move to the drier quarters of relatives or friends, there to stay until the roofer could attend to their own houses. Under a huge kettle, put up in the public street, Salsido set fire to some wood, threw in his pitch and melted it. Then, after he or a helper had climbed onto the roof, the molten pitch was hauled up in buckets and poured over the troublesome leaks. Much of this tar was imported from the North, but some was obtained in this locality, particularly from so-called springs on the Hancock ranch, which for a long time have furnished great quantities of the useful, if unattractive, substance. This asphalt was later used for sidewalks, and even into the eighties was employed as fuel. To return to Salsido, I might add that in summer the pitch-roofer had no work at all. Besides the adobes with their asphalt roofs, some houses, erected within the first quarter of the Nineteenth Century, were covered with tiles. The most notable tiled building was the old Church, whose roof was unfortunately removed when the edifice was so extensively renovated. The Carrillo home was topped with these ancient tiles, as were also José María Ábila's residence; Vicente Sanchez's two-story adobe south of the Plaza, and the Alvarado house on First Street, between Main and Los Angeles streets.