History of California

Chapter III

“The Se­cret of the Strait”

Cabril­lo

One af­ter­noon in Septem­ber, in the year 1542, two broad, clum­sy ships, each with the flag of Spain fly­ing above her many sails, were beat­ing their way up the coast of south­ern Cal­ifor­nia. All day the ves­sels had been wal­low­ing in the chop­py seas, driv­en about by con­trary winds. At last the prow of the lead­ing ship was turned to­ward shore, where there seemed to be an open­ing that might lead to a good har­bor. At the bow of the ship stood the mas­ter of the ex­pe­di­tion, the tanned, keen-​faced cap­tain, Juan Ro­driguez Cabril­lo. He was earnest­ly watch­ing the land be­fore him, which was still some dis­tance away.

“Come hith­er, Juan,” he called to a stur­dy lad, about six­teen, who, with an In­di­an boy, brought from Mex­ico as in­ter­preter, was al­so ea­ger­ly look­ing land­ward. “Your eyes should be bet­ter than mine. Think you there is a har­bor be­yond that point?”

“It sure­ly seems so to me, sir,” an­swered the boy; “and Pepe, whose eyes, you know, are keen­er than ours, says that he can plain­ly see the en­trance.”

“I trust he is right; for this thick­en­ing weath­er promis­es a storm, and a safe har­bor would be a gift of God to us weary ones this night,” said the cap­tain, with a sigh.

Since the fair June day when they had sailed out of the har­bor on the west shore of Mex­ico, they had been fol­low­ing first up the coast line of the Penin­su­la, then of Up­per Cal­ifor­nia. No maps or charts of the re­gion show­ing where lay good har­bors or dan­ger­ous rocks, could be found in Cabril­lo’s cab­in. In­stead, there were maps of this South Sea which pic­tured ter­ri­ble dan­gers for mariners–great whirlpools which could suck down whole fleets of ves­sels, and im­mense wa­ter­falls, where it was thought the whole ocean poured off the end of the land in­to space. A brave man was Cap­tain Cabril­lo, for, half be­liev­ing these sto­ries, he yet sailed steadi­ly on, de­ter­mined, no mat­ter what hap­pened to him­self, to do his du­ty to the king un­der whose flag he sailed, and to the viceroy of Mex­ico, whose funds had fur­nished the ex­pe­di­tion.

Cal­ifor­nia has ev­er been not­ed for its brave men, but none have been more coura­geous than this ex­plor­er, who was prob­ably the first white man to set his foot up­on its soil. As the ship ap­proached land the crew be­came silent, ev­ery eye be­ing turned anx­ious­ly to the open­ing of the pas­sage which ap­peared be­fore them. The ves­sel, driv­en by the stiff breeze, rushed on, al­most touch­ing the rock at one point. Then, caught by a fa­vor­able cur­rent, it swept in­to mid-​chan­nel, where it moved rapid­ly for­ward, un­til at length it rode safe­ly in the har­bor now known as San Diego Bay.

“It is a good port and well in­closed,” said Juan Cabril­lo, with great sat­is­fac­tion, gaz­ing out up­on the broad sheet of qui­et wa­ter. “We will name it for our good San Miguel, to whom our prayers for a safe an­chor­age were of­fered this morn­ing.” Then, when the two ships were rid­ing at an­chor, the com­man­der or­dered out the boats.

“We will see what kind of peo­ple these are, dodg­ing be­hind the bush­es yon­der,” said he. As the Spaniards drew near shore they could see many flee­ing fig­ures.

“What a pity they are so afraid,” said Cabril­lo. “If we are to learn any­thing of the coun­try, we must teach them that we mean them no harm.”

“Mas­ter,” said Pepe, “there are three of them hid­ing be­hind those bush­es.”

“Is it so, lad? Then go you up to them. They will not fear you.” So the In­di­an boy walked slow­ly for­ward, hold­ing out his hands with his palms up­ward, which not on­ly let the na­tives see that he was un­armed, but in the sign lan­guage meant peace and friend­ship. As he drew near to them an old man and two younger ones, dressed in scanty shirts of rab­bit-​skins, came from their hid­ing places and be­gan to talk to Pepe, but, though they al­so were In­di­ans, they did not speak his lan­guage. Some of their words were ev­ident­ly sim­ilar to his, and by these and the help of signs he part­ly un­der­stood what they said. Present­ly he re­turned to the group on shore.

“They say there are Spaniards back in the coun­try a few days’ jour­ney from here.”

“Spaniards? That is im­pos­si­ble,” re­turned Cabril­lo.

“They say that they are beard­ed, wear clothes like yours, and have white faces,” an­swered the boy, sim­ply.

“They must be mis­tak­en, or per­haps you did not un­der­stand them ful­ly,” said the mas­ter. “At an­oth­er time we will ques­tion them fur­ther. Now, give them this present of beads and hur­ry back, for it is late.”

That night some of the men from the ships went on shore to fish. While they were draw­ing their nets, the In­di­ans stole up soft­ly and dis­charged their ar­rows, wound­ing three. The boy Juan had the most se­ri­ous in­jury, an ar­row be­ing so deeply em­bed­ded in his shoul­der that it could not be re­moved un­til they reached the ship. There the padre, who, like most priests of that day, knew some­thing of surgery, drew it out, and bound up the shoul­der in sooth­ing bal­sams.

On the sec­ond day of their stay in port the wind be­gan to blow from the south­west; the waves grew rough, and Cabril­lo or­dered the ships to be made ready for the tem­pest, which soon be­came vi­olent. Mean­time, Juan lay suf­fer­ing in his ham­mock, which swung back­ward and for­ward with the mo­tion of the ship. Sud­den­ly he heard a step be­side him and felt a cool hand on his fore­head.

“How goes it, lad?” said Cabril­lo, for it was the mas­ter him­self. “You are suf­fer­ing in a good cause. Have courage; you will soon be well. Re­mem­ber, you have helped to dis­cov­er a har­bor, the like of which is sel­dom found. This storm is a se­vere one. I can hear the surf boom­ing on the far­ther shore, yet our ship shows no strain on the an­chor. Good har­bor though it is, I am sore­ly dis­ap­point­ed, as I had hoped it was the en­trance to the strait, the strait that seems a phan­tom fly­ing be­fore us as we go, draw­ing us on­ward to we know not what.” The sad­ness of the cap­tain’s voice trou­bled Juan.

“Mas­ter,” he asked earnest­ly, “what is the strait? I hear of it of­ten, yet no one can tell me what it is, or where it lies.”

“Be­cause no one knows,” an­swered the cap­tain, ris­ing. “I am need­ed on deck, but I will send old Tomas to tell you its strange sto­ry.”

“The se­cret of the strait,” said old Tomas, as he seat­ed him­self be­side Juan, “has led many men to gal­lant deeds and al­so many a man to a gal­lant death. Al­ways, since as a lad I first went to sea, the mer­chants of many lands have been seek­ing a safe and speedy way of reach­ing the In­dies, where are found such foods, spices, and jew­els as one sees nowhere else in the world.

“My fa­ther and grand­fa­ther used to trav­el with car­avans over­land to and from In­dia. There are sev­er­al routes, each con­trolled by some one of the great Ital­ian cities, but all have some­where to cross the desert, where the trains are of­ten robbed by wild tribes. Some­times, as they come near­er home, they are held by the Turks for heavy trib­ute, with such loss that the mer­chants have been forced to turn to the sea in hopes that a bet­ter way might be found. It was while search­ing for this route that Colum­bus dis­cov­ered the new world, and when the news of his suc­cess was brought back to Eu­rope there was great re­joic­ing, be­cause it was thought that he had reached some part of In­dia. Mag­el­lan’s voy­age, how­ev­er, de­stroyed these hopes. He sailed for months down the east­ern shore of the new land, and dis­cov­ered, far away to the south, a strait through which he reached the great South Sea, but then he still sailed on for near­ly a year be­fore he came to the Spice Is­lands and Asia.

“Now ev­ery one be­lieves that some­where through this land to the north of us there is a wide, deep sea pas­sage from the North Sea [At­lantic] to the South Sea [Pa­cif­ic], by which ships may speed­ily reach In­dia. This pas­sage is called the Strait of Ani­an.

“The great cap­tain, Her­nan­do Cortez, the con­queror of New Spain [Mex­ico] spent many years and a large for­tune seek­ing for this wa­ter way. Four dif­fer­ent ex­pe­di­tions he sent out to ex­plore this coast: most of them at his own cost. In the sec­ond one his pi­lot, Jiminez, led a mutiny, mur­dered his cap­tain, and af­ter­ward dis­cov­ered, ac­ci­den­tal­ly, the south­ern point of this land we are now ex­plor­ing. But it was not the good for­tune of the no­ble Cortez to dis­cov­er the strait. Our cap­tain is the next to take up the search, and may God send him suc­cess.”

Af­ter a stay of near­ly a week in the bay of San Diego, Cabril­lo con­tin­ued his voy­age up the coast, sail­ing by day, an­chor­ing at night. He touched at an is­land which he named San Sal­vador, but which we know as San­ta Catali­na. Here, by his kind and gen­er­ous treat­ment, he won the friend­ship of the na­tives. From this beau­ti­ful spot, he sailed, one Sun­day morn­ing, to the main­land. En­ter­ing the Bay of San Pe­dro, he found it en­veloped in smoke.

“It seems a fair port,” said the com­man­der, “but go no far­ther in­land. Drop an­chor while we can see our way. We may well call this the Bay of Smokes.” The fires, they found, had been start­ed by the In­di­ans to drive the rab­bits from shel­ter, so they could be the more eas­ily killed.

Sail­ing on, the ships an­chored off a thick­ly set­tled val­ley, where the town of Ven­tu­ra now lies. Here, on Oc­to­ber 12, 1542, Cabril­lo and his com­pa­ny went on shore and took solemn pos­ses­sion of the land in the name of the king of Spain and the viceroy of Mex­ico. Here, and along the chan­nel, the peo­ple were bet­ter-​look­ing, more com­fort­ably lodged and clothed, than those far­ther south. They al­so had good ca­noes, which the na­tives of the low­er coast did not pos­sess. Push­ing on, the ex­plor­er saw and not­ed the chan­nel is­lands and round­ed Point Con­cep­tion. From here he was driv­en back by con­trary winds, and to­ward night­fall of a stormy day found him­self near the lit­tle is­land now named San Miguel.

“We will call it La Pos­esion and take it for our own,” said Cabril­lo, “for, if we can but make it, there seems to be a good har­bor here.” The storm, how­ev­er, grew more se­vere. The sea rose un­til oc­ca­sion­al­ly the waves swept over the small­er ship, which was with­out a deck. Here oc­curred a most un­hap­py ac­ci­dent. Some­thing about the ship, a spar prob­ably, loos­ened by the storm, fell and struck the brave com­man­der, break­ing his arm. Al­though severe­ly in­jured, he would not have the wounds dressed un­til, af­ter a long pe­ri­od of anx­iety, the two ships en­tered in safe­ty the lit­tle har­bor of San Miguel.

Here, storm­bound, they re­mained for a week. When they ven­tured forth, they again met with high winds and bad weath­er. Cabril­lo, who in spite of dis­cour­age­ments nev­er for­got his search for the strait, pushed close in­shore and kept much of the time on deck look­ing for some signs of a riv­er or pas­sage. One morn­ing at day­break, af­ter a rough night, they found them­selves drift­ing in an open bay.

“It is a fine road­stead,” said Cabril­lo, com­ing on deck, as the sun rose over the pine-​cov­ered hills. “Were it small­er, it would be a wel­come har­bor. We will name it from those ma­jes­tic trees La Bahia de Pinos, and yon­der long pro­jec­tion we will call the Cabo de Pinos.” That bay is now called Mon­terey, but the cape still bears the name giv­en it by this first ex­plor­er.

An­chor­ing in forty-​five fath­oms of wa­ter, they tried to go on shore, in or­der to take pos­ses­sion of the land, but the sea was so rough that they could not launch their boats. The next day they dis­cov­ered and named some moun­tains which they called Sier­ra Neva­da, and, sail­ing on, went as far north as about 40¼. But this win­ter voy­age was made at a great sac­ri­fice. The ex­po­sure and hard­ships, fol­low­ing the wound he had re­ceived, were too much for even the hardy sailor Juan Ro­driguez Cabril­lo. Af­ter weeks of strug­gle with storms, the ships were forced back to their old shel­ter at San Miguel. Here Christ­mas week was spent, but a sad hol­iday it was to the ex­plor­ers, for their brave lead­er lay dy­ing. Nobly had he done his du­ty up to the last.

“Juan,” he said, to his young at­ten­dant, on Christ­mas Eve, “how glad­ly the bells will be ring­ing in Lis­bon to-​night. I seem to hear them now. They drive out all oth­er sounds. Call Fer­re­lo and let no one else come but the padre.” Very soon Juan re­turned with Cabril­lo’s first as­sis­tant, the pi­lot, Fer­re­lo, a brave nav­iga­tor and a just man.

“Fer­re­lo,” said Cabril­lo, faint­ly, “Death calls me, and the du­ty I lay down you must take up. I com­mand you to push the ex­pe­di­tion north­ward at all haz­ards, and to keep such records as are nec­es­sary in or­der that fit­ting ac­count of our voy­age shall be giv­en to the world. Will you promise me to do this?”

“I will, my mas­ter,” said Fer­re­lo, sim­ply. “To the best of my abil­ity will I take up your work.”

“Al­ways look­ing for the strait, Fer­re­lo?”

“Al­ways, senor.”

On the 3d of Jan­uary, 1543, the brave man died and was buried in the sands of Cuyler Har­bor on San Miguel Is­land. His men called the is­land Juan Ro­driguez. This name was af­ter­wards dropped, but Cal­ifor­nia should see to it that the is­land is rechris­tened in hon­or of the great sailor who sleeps there.

Fer­re­lo lat­er suc­ceed­ed in sail­ing as far north as Cape Men­do­ci­no and per­haps as far as 42¡, but, though he kept as close to the shore as pos­si­ble, he failed to dis­cov­er the great bay whose wa­ters, spread­ing like a sheet of sil­ver over six­ty miles of coun­try, lay hid­den just be­hind the Gold­en Gate. Near the Ore­gon line he was driv­en back by storms, and re­turned to Mex­ico, where he pub­lished a full ac­count of the voy­age.

Drake

In the town of Of­fen­burg, Ger­many, there is a stat­ue of a man stand­ing on the deck of a ship, lean­ing against an an­chor, his right hand grasp­ing a map of Amer­ica, his left, a clus­ter of bul­bous roots. On the pedestal is the in­scrip­tion, “Sir Fran­cis Drake, the in­tro­duc­er of pota­toes in­to Eu­rope in the year of our Lord 1586.”

While it is doubt­ful whether this hon­or re­al­ly be­longs to Drake, an En­glish­man, see­ing the stat­ue, would be in­clined to say, “Is this all that Ger­many has to tell of the great cap­tain who led our navy against the Span­ish Ar­ma­da; the first En­glish­man to sail around the world; the most dar­ing ex­plor­er, clever naval com­man­der, ex­pert sea­man, brave sol­dier, loy­al friend, and gal­lant en­emy of his time?” A Spaniard, on the con­trary, might well ex­claim, “Why did Ger­many erect a stat­ue to this ter­ri­ble man whom our po­ets call Drag­ontea [Drag­on], this great­est of all pi­rates, this ter­ror of the sea?” All this, and more, might be said of one man, who be­gan life as a ship’s boy.

At the time Drake first went to sea, Eng­land and Spain were by no means friend­ly. Hen­ry the Eighth of Eng­land had ill-​treat­ed his wife, who was a Span­ish princess. In ad­di­tion he had drawn the En­glish peo­ple away from the Church of Rome. These things were most dis­pleas­ing to Spain, but there was still an­oth­er rea­son for dis­agree­ment. The in­ter­ests of the two coun­tries were op­posed com­mer­cial­ly, and this was the most im­por­tant cause of con­tention.

Spain claimed by right of dis­cov­ery, and gift of the Pope of Rome, all the land in the new world ex­cept Brazil (which be­longed to Por­tu­gal), and held that no ex­plor­ers or trades­men, oth­er than her own, had any rights on her wa­ters or in her ports. En­glish sea­men de­nied much of this claim, and so fre­quent were the dis­putes aris­ing up­on the sub­ject that the En­glish sailors adopt­ed as a max­im, “No peace be­yond the line,” mean­ing the line which was, by the Pope’s de­cree, the east­ern bound­ary of the Span­ish claim.

The fa­vorite prey of the British mariners was the trea­sure ships car­ry­ing to Spain the pre­cious car­goes of gold and sil­ver from the rich mines of the new world. With the far rich­er ships of the Philip­pine and In­di­an trade, sail­ing on un­known wa­ters, they had not, up to Drake’s time, been able to in­ter­fere.

Drake, when a very young man, had joined a trad­ing ex­pe­di­tion to Mex­ico. While there the En­glish were at­tacked by the Span­ish in what the for­mer con­sid­ered a most treach­er­ous man­ner. Drake’s broth­er and many of his com­rades were killed, and their goods tak­en. Af­ter the bat­tle he solemn­ly vowed to be re­venged, and so thor­ough­ly did he car­ry out his res­olu­tion that he was for years the ter­ror of the Span­ish sea­men, and, by many of the su­per­sti­tious com­mon sailors, be­lieved to be Sa­tan him­self come to earth in hu­man form.

Short­ly af­ter this un­for­tu­nate ex­pe­di­tion Drake en­gaged in a ma­raud­ing voy­age to Pana­ma, where he cap­tured rich stores of gold and sil­ver and pre­cious stones. He gained such renown for his brav­ery and sea­man­ship that up­on com­ing home he found him­self fa­mous.

Queen Eliz­abeth knew that Spain was op­posed to her and her re­li­gion, and was not in her heart dis­pleased when her brave sea­men got the bet­ter of their Span­ish ri­vals. She re­ceived Drake pri­vate­ly, and help was of­fered him se­cret­ly from peo­ple who stood high in the gov­ern­ment. With this en­cour­age­ment he re­solved to em­bark on a most haz­ardous and dar­ing ad­ven­ture. While in Pana­ma he had seen, from a “high and goodlie tree” on a moun­tain side, the great Pa­cif­ic, and was im­me­di­ate­ly filled with a de­sire to sail on its wa­ters and ex­plore its shores. He there­fore de­ter­mined to cross the At­lantic, pass through the Strait of Mag­el­lan, up the Pa­cif­ic, and to plun­der the Span­ish towns along the coast of South and Cen­tral Amer­ica, un­til he should reach the re­gion tra­versed by the rich­ly laden Span­ish ships com­ing from In­dia and the Philip­pines. It is said that the queen her­self put a thou­sand crowns in­to this ven­ture. One thing is cer­tain, that he re­ceived suf­fi­cient help to fit out five small ves­sels, with one hun­dred and six­ty-​four men. With these he sailed from Fal­mouth, Eng­land, in De­cem­ber of 1577. With the ex­cep­tion of per­haps one or two of the rich men who had helped him, no one, not even his men, knew of his plans.

Af­ter a long and in­ter­est­ing voy­age in which one ves­sel was lost and the oth­ers, though he did not know it, had de­sert­ed him, he found him­self with but one ship beat­ing his way up the coast of Low­er Cal­ifor­nia. This was his flag­ship Pel­ican, which he had rechris­tened the Gold­en Hind. It was then so laden with rich booty, that it was like a hawk which had stolen too heavy a chick­en, driv­en this way and that by the winds, scarce­ly able to reach its nest.

In ad­di­tion to a good store of Chile wines and foods of var­ious kinds, there were packed away in the hold of the Gold­en Hind, twen­ty-​five thou­sand pe­sos of gold, eight thou­sand pounds of En­glish mon­ey, and a great cross of gold with “emer­alds near as large as a man’s fin­ger.” From one ves­sel Drake had tak­en one hun­dred-​weight of sil­ver; from a mes­sen­ger of the mines, who was sleep­ing be­side a spring on the Pe­ru­vian coast, thir­teen bars of sol­id sil­ver; off the backs of a train of lit­tle gray lla­mas, the camels of the An­des, eight hun­dred pounds of sil­ver; and be­sides all these were large quan­ti­ties of gold and sil­ver that were not record­ed in the ship’s list, and stores of pearls, di­amonds, emer­alds, silks, and porce­lain.

The last prize tak­en was the Span­ish trea­sure ship Ca­ca­fue­gos. Drake had trans­ferred its car­go and crew to his own ves­sel and, for a time, manned it with some of his men. Its no­ble com­man­der, St. John de An­ton, who had been wound­ed in the at­tack, re­ceived ev­ery pos­si­ble at­ten­tion on the En­glish ves­sel, and in the re­port which he af­ter­wards made to the viceroy of Mex­ico, he told of the per­fect or­der and dis­ci­pline main­tained on the Gold­en Hind, and of the lux­ury which sur­round­ed its com­man­der, who was treat­ed with great rev­er­ence by his men.

Be­fore sail­ing on to the north­ward, Drake re­stored St. John and his crew to their ves­sel. Then, be­cause he feared that they might fall in­to the hands of his fleet (hav­ing no sus­pi­cion that the oth­er cap­tains had re­turned home), he gave the Spaniards the fol­low­ing let­ter, which shows the great En­glish­man to have been more hon­or­able than he is of­ten­times rep­re­sent­ed:–

“To Mas­ter Wein­ter and the Mas­ters of the Oth­er Ships of my Fleet:

“If it pleaseth God that you should chance to meet with this ship of St. John de An­ton, I pray you use him well ac­cord­ing to my promise giv­en him. If you want to use any­thing that is in the ship, I pray you pay him dou­ble val­ue for it, which I will sat­is­fy again. And com­mand your men not to do any harm and what agree­ment we have made, at my re­turn un­to Eng­land, I will, by God’s help, per­form, al­though I am in doubt that this let­ter will ev­er come to your hand, notwith­stand­ing I am the man I have promised to be.

“Be­seech­ing God, the Saviour of the world, to have us all in his keep­ing, to whom I give all hon­or, praise, and glo­ry,

“Your sor­row­ful cap­tain, whose heart is heavy for you,

“Fran­cis Drake.”

How to get home was the prob­lem which this dar­ing man had now to solve. There was no pos­si­bil­ity of re­turn­ing by the way he had come. He well knew that the news of his de­par­ture had reached Spain, and that her war ships would be wait­ing for him, not on­ly at the east­ern en­trance of the Strait of Mag­el­lan, but at the Isth­mus and in the Caribbean Sea.

If by sail­ing north­ward he could find the Strait of Ani­an, then his home­ward jour­ney would be safe and short; but if he could not find that il­lu­sive body of wa­ter, then there was left to him but the Pa­cif­ic for a high­way. How­ev­er, this did not daunt him, as he felt that what the Por­tuguese Mag­el­lan had done, Drake the En­glish­man could do.

Keep­ing well out from shore, the Gold­en Hind now sailed north­ward for near­ly two months. Drake passed just west of the Far­al­lon Is­lands, nev­er dream­ing of the great har­bor which lay so short a dis­tance on the oth­er side. He trav­eled as far north as lat­itude 42¡ or pos­si­bly 43¡, and per­haps he even land­ed at one point, but he failed to find the strait. Ac­cord­ing to Fletch­er, the priest of the Church of Eng­land who kept a jour­nal of the ex­pe­di­tion, they were fi­nal­ly forced by the ex­treme cold to turn south­ward. “Here,” says Fletch­er, “it pleased God on this 17th day of June, 1579, to send us, in lat­itude 38¡, a con­ve­nient fit har­bor.” This is now sup­posed to be Drakes Bay, which lies thir­ty miles north­west of San Fran­cis­co, in Marin coun­ty.

“In this bay we an­chored, and the peo­ple of the coun­try hav­ing their hous­es close to the wa­ter­side showed them­selves un­to us and sent presents to our gen­er­al. He, in re­turn, cour­te­ous­ly treat­ed them and lib­er­al­ly be­stowed up­on them things nec­es­sary to cov­er their naked­ness.

“Their hous­es are digged around about with earth and have for the brim of that cir­cle, clefts of wood set up­on the ground and joined close­ly to­geth­er at the top like the spire of a steeple, which by rea­son of this close­ness are very warm. The men go naked, but the wom­en make them­selves loose gar­ments knit about the mid­dle, while over their shoul­ders they wear the skin of a deer.”

These peo­ple brought presents and seemed to want to of­fer sac­ri­fices to the strangers as gods, but Drake, hasti­ly call­ing his men to­geth­er, held di­vine ser­vices, “To which, es­pe­cial­ly the prayers and mu­sic,” says Fletch­er, “they were most at­ten­tive and seemed to be great­ly af­fect­ed.” The Bible used by Drake in this ser­vice is still to be seen in Nut Hall House, De­von­shire, Eng­land.

Present­ly a mes­sen­ger came, say­ing that the king wished to vis­it them if they would as­sure him of their peace­ful in­ten­tions. Drake sent him presents, then marched his force in­to a kind of fort he had had made in which to place such parts of the car­go as it was nec­es­sary to re­move in or­der to ca­reen the ship for re­pair­ing. The com­ing of the chief is thus de­scribed:–

“He came in prince­ly majesty. In the fore-​front was a man of good­ly per­son­age who bore the scepter where­on was hung two crowns with chains of mar­velous length. The crowns were made of knit-​work wrought with feath­ers of divers col­ors, the chains be­ing made of bony sub­stances.

“Next came the king with his guard, all well clothed in con­nie skins, then the naked com­mon peo­ple with faces paint­ed, each bear­ing some presents. Af­ter cer­emonies con­sist­ing of speech­es and dances, they of­fered one of the crowns to Drake, who, ac­cept­ing in the name of Eliz­abeth, al­lowed it to be placed on his head.”

While the men were busy clean­ing and re­pair­ing the ship, the com­man­der and his of­fi­cers made ex­cur­sions in­to the in­te­ri­or, vis­it­ing many In­di­an towns and pass­ing through wide plains where vast herds of deer, of­ten one thou­sand or more, all large and fat, were feed­ing on the rich grass­es. They al­so saw great num­bers of what they called con­nies, which, from their de­scrip­tion, must have been ground squir­rels, or else some va­ri­ety of an­imal now ex­tinct. The coun­try Drake named New Al­bion, part­ly from its white cliffs, which re­sem­bled those of his na­tive land, and part­ly in be­lief that it would be eas­ier to lay claim to the coun­try if it bore one of the names ap­plied to Eng­land.

“When the time came for our de­par­ture,” con­tin­ued Fletch­er in his jour­nal, “our gen­er­al set up a mon­ument of our be­ing here, so al­so, of her majesty’s right and ti­tle to the land: name­ly a plate nailed up­on a fair great post, where­on was en­graved her majesty’s name, the day and year of our ar­rival, with the giv­ing up of the province and peo­ple in­to her majesty’s hands, to­geth­er with her high­ness’ pic­ture and arms in a six­pence un­der the plate, where­un­der was al­so writ­ten the name of our gen­er­al.”

Fletch­er seemed not to know of Cabril­lo’s voy­age, for he claimed that no one had ev­er dis­cov­ered land in this re­gion, or for many de­grees to the south; while in fact Fer­re­lo with Cabril­lo’s ships had sailed as far north as lat­itude 42¡, al­though we have no rea­son to think that he land­ed in a high­er lat­itude than that of Point Con­cep­tion and San Miguel Is­land.

Once again solemn re­li­gious ser­vices were held by the En­glish­men on the hos­pitable soil that had been their home for over a month. Then they went on board the ship, ac­com­pa­nied to the shore by the griev­ing In­di­ans, who would not be com­fort­ed when they saw their new friends for­sak­ing them. It was near the last of Ju­ly in 1579 that Cap­tain Drake with his brave men be­gan his won­der­ful home­ward voy­age.

It was a tri­umphant re­turn they made in Septem­ber, a year lat­er. Crowds flocked to see the fa­mous ship and its gal­lant com­man­der.

Some of the queen’s states­men strong­ly dis­ap­proved of Drake’s at­tack up­on Span­ish towns and ves­sels, and felt he should be ar­rest­ed and tried for pira­cy; but the com­mon peo­ple cheered him wher­ev­er he went, and as a crown­ing hon­or, in the lux­uri­ous cab­in of his good ship Gold­en Hind, he was vis­it­ed by the great Eliz­abeth her­self. When the ban­quet was over, at the queen’s com­mand, he bent his knee be­fore her, and this sovereign, who, though a wom­an, dear­ly loved such courage and dar­ing as he had dis­played, tapped him on the shoul­der and bade him arise “Sir Fran­cis Drake.”

Gal­li and Car­menon

In 1584 Fran­cis­co Gal­li, com­mand­ing a Philip­pine ship, re­turn­ing to Mex­ico by way of Japan, sight­ed the coast of Cal­ifor­nia in lat­itude 37¡ 30′. He saw, as he re­port­ed, “a high and fair land with no snow and many trees, and in the sea, drifts of roots, reeds, and leaves.” Some of the lat­ter he gath­ered and cooked with meat for his men, who were no doubt suf­fer­ing from scurvy.

Gal­li wrote of the point where he first saw the coast as Cape Men­do­ci­no, which would seem to im­ply that the point had been dis­cov­ered and named at some pre­vi­ous time, of which, how­ev­er, there is no record.

In 1595 Se­bas­tian Car­menon, com­mand­ing the ship San Agustin, com­ing from the Philip­pines, was giv­en roy­al or­ders to make some ex­plo­rations on the coast of Cal­ifor­nia, prob­ably to find a suit­able har­bor for Mani­la ves­sels. In do­ing so he was so un­for­tu­nate as to run his ves­sel ashore be­hind Point Reyes, and to light­en her was obliged to leave be­hind a por­tion of his car­go, con­sist­ing of wax and silks in box­es. There is on­ly the briefest record of this voy­age, and no re­port of any dis­cov­er­ies.

Viz­caino

Al­most six­ty years af­ter the voy­age of Cabril­lo, came a roy­al or­der from the king of Spain to the viceroy of Mex­ico which, trans­lat­ed from the Span­ish, ran some­thing like this:–

“Go, search the north­ern coast of the Cal­ifor­nias, un­til you find a good and suf­fi­cient har­bor where­in my Mani­la galleons may an­chor safe and pro­tect­ed, and where may be found­ed a town that my scurvy-​strick­en sailors may find the fresh food nec­es­sary for their re­lief. Fur­ther­more, spare no ex­pense.”

The de­struc­tion of Span­ish ship­ping by Drake and oth­er En­glish sea­men who fol­lowed his ex­am­ple, had caused great anx­iety to the Spaniards and was part­ly the rea­son for this or­der.

“Send for Don Se­bas­tian,” said the viceroy. “He is a brave gen­tle­man and good sailor. He shall car­ry out the or­der of the king.” But it took time to fit out such an ex­pe­di­tion, and it was not un­til an af­ter­noon in May, 1602, that Don Se­bas­tian Viz­caino, on his flag­ship, the San Diego, sailed out of the har­bor of Aca­pul­co in­to the broad Pa­cif­ic. Close­ly fol­low­ing him were his oth­er ships, the San Thomas and Tres Reyes.

There had been solemn ser­vices at the cathe­dral that af­ter­noon. Of­fi­cers and men had tak­en of the holy com­mu­nion; and now their wives and chil­dren stood on the is­land at the en­trance of the har­bor, watch­ing the white sails as they grew fainter and fainter and at last dis­ap­peared in the haze of the com­ing night.

Then the watch­ers re­turned to their lone­ly homes with heavy hearts, for in those days few came back who sailed out on the great South Sea. Storms, bat­tles with the na­tives, and scurvy made sad hav­oc among the sailors.

Ear­ly in Novem­ber Viz­caino en­tered “a fa­mous port,” which he named San Diego, find­ing it, as Padre As­cen­sion’s jour­nal says, “beau­ti­ful and very grand, and all parts of it very con­ve­nient shel­ter from the winds.” Af­ter leav­ing San Diego, the next an­chor­ing place was the is­land named by Viz­caino for San­ta Catali­na, on whose feast day his ships en­tered the pret­ty lit­tle har­bor of Aval­on.

The Spaniards were great­ly pleased with the is­land and al­so with the peo­ple, whom they de­scribed as be­ing a large-​fig­ured, light-​com­plex­ioned race; all, men, wom­en, and chil­dren, be­ing well clothed in seal­skins. They had large dwellings, many towns, and fine ca­noes. What struck Padre As­cen­sion most strong­ly was their tem­ple, of which he says: “There was in the tem­ple a large lev­el court, and about this a cir­cle sur­round­ed by feath­er work of dif­fer­ent col­ors tak­en from var­ious birds which I un­der­stand had been sac­ri­ficed to their idols. With­in this cir­cle was the fig­ure of a de­mon paint­ed in col­or af­ter the man­ner of the In­di­ans of New Spain. On its sides were fig­ures of the sun and moon.

“It so fell out that when our sol­diers came up from the ships to view the tem­ple, there were in the cir­cle two im­mense ravens, far larg­er than or­di­nary. When the men ar­rived, they flew away to some rocks that were near by, and the sol­diers see­ing how large they were, raised their ar­que­bus­es and killed them both. Then did the In­di­ans be­gin to weep and make great lamen­ta­tion. I un­der­stand that the dev­il was ac­cus­tomed to speak to them, through these birds, for which they showed great re­spect.”

There were in the is­land quan­ti­ties of ed­ible roots of a va­ri­ety of the yuc­ca called gi­ca­mas, and many lit­tle bulbs which the Span­ish called “pa­pas pe­quenos” (lit­tle pota­toes). These, the padre said, the In­di­ans took in their ca­noes over to the main­land, thus mak­ing their liv­ing by barter. This cer­tain­ly must have been the be­gin­ning of com­merce on the coast.

Viz­caino en­tered and named the Bay of San Pe­dro. To the chan­nel is­lands he al­so gave the names which they now bear. Sail­ing on, he dis­cov­ered a riv­er which he named “Carme­lo,” in hon­or of the Carmelite fri­ars who ac­com­pa­nied him. The same day the fleet round­ed the long cape called “Point Pinos” and came to an­chor in the bay formed by its pro­jec­tion. From here the San Tomas was sent to Mex­ico to car­ry the sick, of whom there were many, and to bring back fresh sup­plies. The men who re­mained were at once set to work. Some sup­plied the two ships with wood and wa­ter; oth­ers built a chapel of brush near the beach, un­der a large oak at the roots of which flowed a spring of de­li­cious wa­ter. In this chapel mass was said and the Te Deum chant­ed. For over one hun­dred and fifty years this oak was known, both in New Spain and at the court of the king, as the “Oak of Viz­caino, in the Bay of Mon­terey.” From here Viz­caino wrote to the king of Spain as fol­lows:–

“Among the ports of greater con­sid­er­ation which I have dis­cov­ered is one in 30¡ north lat­itude which I called Mon­terey, as I wrote to your majesty in De­cem­ber. It is all that can be de­sired for com­modi­ous­ness and as a sta­tion for ships mak­ing the voy­age from the Philip­pines, sail­ing whence they make a land­fall on this coast. It is shel­tered from all winds and in the im­me­di­ate vicin­ity are pines from which masts of any de­sired size could be ob­tained, as well as live oak, white oak, and oth­er woods. There is a va­ri­ety of game, great and small. The land has a ge­nial cli­mate and the wa­ters are good. It is thick­ly set­tled by a peo­ple whom I find to be of gen­tle dis­po­si­tion, and whom I be­lieve can be brought with­in the fold of the Holy Gospel and sub­ju­ga­tion to your majesty.”

This en­thu­si­as­tic praise of the har­bor of Mon­terey by a man who was fa­mil­iar with the port of San Diego, caused much trou­ble lat­er, as will be seen in the study of the found­ing of the mis­sions.

Not wait­ing for the re­turn of the San Tomas, Viz­caino with his two ships soon sailed north­ward, and reached a point in about lat­itude 42¡, which was prob­ably the north­ern lim­it reached by Cabril­lo’s ships and on­ly a lit­tle low­er than the far­thest ex­plo­rations of Drake. Al­though Viz­caino was look­ing for har­bors, he yet passed twice out­side the Bay of San Fran­cis­co, the finest on the coast, with­out dis­cov­er­ing it. Af­ter his re­turn to Mex­ico, Viz­caino en­deav­ored to raise an ex­pe­di­tion to found a set­tle­ment at Mon­terey, even go­ing to Spain to press the mat­ter; but oth­er schemes were de­mand­ing the king’s at­ten­tion, and he would give nei­ther thought nor mon­ey to af­fairs in the new world; and so, thor­ough­ly dis­heart­ened Viz­caino re­turned to Mex­ico.

From this time for over one hun­dred and fifty years there is no record of ex­plo­rations along this coast, ei­ther by ves­sels from Mex­ico or by those com­ing from the Philip­pines. Cal­ifor­nia seemed again for­got­ten.

This is the sto­ry of the few voy­ages made to the coast of Cal­ifor­nia pre­vi­ous to its set­tle­ment. The first, un­der Cabril­lo, was sent out by the viceroy Men­doza, who hoped to gain fame and rich­es by the dis­cov­ery of the Strait of Ani­an, and by find­ing wealthy coun­tries and cities which were sup­posed to ex­ist in the great north­west, about which much was imag­ined but noth­ing known.

Drake planned his voy­age large­ly in pur­suit of his re­venge up­on Spain, part­ly for the plun­der which he hoped to ob­tain from the Span­ish towns and ves­sels along the Pa­cif­ic coast of Amer­ica, and part­ly be­cause of his de­sire to ex­plore the Pa­cif­ic Ocean.

Viz­caino al­so was ex­pect­ed to search for the strait, but he was es­pe­cial­ly sent out to find a good har­bor and place for set­tle­ment on the Cal­ifor­nia coast. This was in­tend­ed in a great mea­sure for the ben­efit of the Philip­pine trade, but al­so to aid in hold­ing the coun­try for Spain.