Over the heavy oaken doors were images and carvings
in stone worn by time.
To the left of the church, beside the wing of the cross, was the plaza
of the convent, about thirty yards square, with its separate walls more
than fifteen feet high and nearly four feet thick.
Ned noted all these things rapidly and ineffaceably, as he and Crockett
took a swift but complete survey of their fortress. He saw that the
convent and hospital, each two stories in height, were made of adobe
bricks, and he also noticed a sallyport, protected by a little redoubt,
at the southeastern corner of the yard.
They saw beyond the convent yard the great plaza into which they had
driven the cattle, a parallelogram covering nearly three acres, inclosed
by a wall eight feet in height and three feet thick. Prisons, barracks
and other buildings were scattered about. Beyond the walls was a small
group of wretched jacals or huts in which some Mexicans lived. Water
from the San Antonio flowed in ditches through the mission.
It was almost a town that they were called upon to defend, and Ned and
Crockett, after their hasty look, came back to the church, the strongest
of all the buildings, with walls of hewn stone five feet thick and
nearly twenty-five feet high.
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