DAWN AND THE DONS 131
The buildings were mostly adobe, painted white and roofed with red tiles. There was plenty of adobe soil close at hand, from which the Indians could make bricks, grinding the lumps of clay in crude wooden mills, named arastras; treading it to proper consistency with bare feet, mixing it with cut straw to give it tenacity, then drying in the sun. Tiles, too, were native made and fired, and nearby quarries gave a white stone, known locally as chalk-rock, of which the more pretentious buildings were constructed. The mortar used for both adobe bricks and rock was clay. Often the adobe bricks were given an added artistic value by pressing into them, while still moist, pebbles, small colored stones, and even
shells from the beaches, in ornamental designs. Timbers for joists, cross beams and rafters were hewed and shaped by hand from redwood, mostly, and the planks for floors and roof-boards were split with wedges from the straight-grained logs of the same great trees, growing in nearby canyons along the coast. Door frames and window casings were built in as the house grew up, and were strong and massive pieces of the enduring wood. Finally the whole building, inside and out, was plastered to give it finish and additional protection against the weather. Curious stones were often brought many miles to serve as steps or gateposts. The more pretentious houses were built around an inside court, the patio, upon which all the rooms opened. Wide verandas were across the front of the house, and
on the inside around the patio, and these, covered with
