seven

wearing short leathern jackets), packers, fifteen Christian Indians from Baja California, and two servants respectively to the first and second commanders -making, with the Governor, a total of sixty-five men. Enough horses and mules were taken to furnish the expedition with relays the number is unrecorded. In the lead was Portola; about him were the spiritual and temporal officers-except Captain Rivera, commanding the rear guard-and following close were six of the Catalonian Volunteers, with Indians carrying picks, shovels, crowbars and axes to hew a path through the thickets and scratch a trail over the virgin mountains. Next came the pack train in four divisions with muleteers and garrison soldiers in each band. Comprised in the rear guard were the rest of the troops and friendly Indians, in charge of the relays of animals.

It took the plucky pioneers two months and a half to traverse the two hundred leagues-nearly six hundred miles-from San Diego to the vicinity of Vizcaino's port, the dominating landmark of which was the Point of Pines. They bore in mind the Puerto of San Diego, also named by Vizcaino. The port they sought was an equally "famous" puerto according to the discoverer; therefore, it must be a notable harbor, instead of an open bay, or roadstead; indeed, he said it was "sheltered from all winds," and on the immediate coast there are pines from which masts of any desired size can be obtained." The discoverer had placed Monterey Bay in latitude 37 deg.; this parallel runs a few miles north of the modern city of Santa Cruz. Such a discrepancy Engineer Costanso could attribute to the antiquated instruments in use in Vizcaino's time. But Father Crespi was in general correct, except for the size of the trees, in his description written to Father Palou after the return to San Diego: "Point Pinos, according to my observations, is in latitude 36 deg. 42 min. Where this point of pines begins (on the south) there is a small bay *** and from there the Point of the Pines extends, and not as the narrative says: and I can assure your Reverence that I did not see one on the whole point which would serve for yards or masts for these vessels; and the said point

The entrance to Crespi Wood, so named in honor of the priest who accompanied Portola and left a record of the expedition. In this wood was the residence of N. C. Carnall, who named the Portola Valley.

ending where it does, there begins a great gulf of twenty leagues at least." This was Monterey Bay.

Can we blame the good father and his companions for half-suspecting that the "famous" port was a fiction of Vizcaino's brain, when the discoverer's charts lay hidden and the searchers had to rely on a narrative which bristled with stories of a large native population using flax, hemp and cotton? Of animals "as large as wolves, and shaped like a stag, with a skin resembling that of a pelican, a long neck, and horns on the head as large as those of a stag; their tail is a yard in length and half a yard in breadth, and their hoofs cloven like that of an ox?" Of the trend of the coast line north of latitude 42 deg. toward Japan and China, which were not far away?

After spending the first week of October hunting in the neighborhood of Point Pinos for Monterey Bay, Portola made his momentous decision to look further north. Many of the travelers were ill,

provisions were scarce, progress was slow. Two weeks later the party had rounded the "great gulf," and on October 23 encamped on Ano Nuevo Creek, in sight of the headland bearing the same name, near the south-western corner of San Mateo County.

On October 24th they were a short distance east of Pigeon Point. The next two days they rested at San Gregorio Creek, which they called for contemporary reasons that of "los soldados de los cursos." ." The Indians of the country were finer than any they had met, and the blackberry bushes, says Father Crespi, were so thick that they impeded progress. On the twenty-seventh they stopped on the south bank of Purisima Creek. Across the stream was an Indian rancheria. The narrative records that Costanso, with good cause, named it after a small insect, concerning which a professor of the State University recently said: "They have eyes, yet see not," but can bite at night, anyhow. California is notorious for themamong persons who have never been there. The encampment next day was made close to the mouth of Pilarcitos Creek. Rains softened the ground, and every one, including the commander, was unwell, so they rested on the 29th. The supply of medicines was reduced, as was that of meat. They thought of killing the weaker mules. On October 30th they were a mile north of the present Montara fog signal.

Their advance was blocked by Mount Montara, 1940 feet high, near Point San Pedro.

On the morrow they went a league to the north, and from the top of the ridge saw Point Reyes far out to sea, the Puerto de San Francisco, and six or seven farallones to the west-northwest. This puerto was the anchorage under Point Reyes Head; they extended the name to the whole Gulf of the Farallones.

The mountains appeared continuous. along the coast. The descent was made to the lagoon behind San Pedro Cove, where camp was pitched. They were over sixty miles north of the latitude of Point Pinos, and no sign of Monterey. A return to San Diego was discussed. But with his usual resolution, the Governor decided to remain a day and send out an exploring party.

Sergeant Ortega now took a detachment. and started over the mountains in a northeasterly direction. For three days he and his companions were gone. On November 3d, at night, the discharge of firearms announced their arrival to those waiting in camp. They reported that on the first day out they had seen a great estero, or arm of the sea, to the east and southeast. From equivocal signs of the Indians, they understood there was a port and a ship therein.

Great was the excitement in camp. True, the good pilot Cabrera Bueno had

reported Monterey to be in latitude 37 degrees, but Costanso had sometimes found him erroneous as much as a degree. Would they-now on short rations, sick and well-nigh disheartened-find the San Carlos safe in port and laden with provisions, and their countrymen waiting fondly to embrace them when they set foot on the shore? By the irony of fate, the San Carlos was the first vessel to pass through the Golden Gate (discovered in 1772 by Fages), and anchor in San Francisco Bay-Aug.

5, 1775.

On November 4th, after mass was said, they hast

gradual enough so that the party could follow the dashing waters of an arroyo. The mountains over which they had come seemed to encircle the estero, and Father Crespi gave them the name of his patron San Francisco. That day camp was pitched on Redwood Creek within a short distance of the bay.

In the next few days, on one of which the party ate acorns and suffered extremely, Sergeant Ortega made an exploration around the head of the bay to the vicinity of Alviso. There was no sign of a ship, and a council of the officers voted for a return southward in search of Monterey, for they could not afford the time and rations further to explore the new discovery. Portola urged that they go forward, but yielded to the advice of his subordinates, and on November 11th all started for the coast.

Point Pinos was reached on November 28th. The party set up two crosses, buried a letter for the long-looked-for San Carlos, and on December 10th, after a severe snow-storm in the neighboring hills, set out with only sixteen sacks of flour for sixty-five men on the five hundred odd miles between them and San Diego. On arrival, Father Crespi wrote to Father Palou: "Those who departed *** from this place *** for Monterey have returned this twenty-fourth day of January of the present year (1770); with the merit of having been compelled to eat the flesh of male and female mules; and with not having found the port of Monterey."

On May 24th, however, the indomitable

Portola had again arrived at Point Pinos. He expressed a desire to see the second cross of the former expedition, during the erection of which he had been on the southern side of the point, and was led to it by a soldier, accompanied by Crespi and Fages. Reflecting that Point Pinos and that opposite, which they judged to be Ano Nuevo, enclosed the "great gulf," and noticing that it was shaped like the letter O; that its water was smooth and looked like a lagoon, and that two large whales were not more than fifty varas from land, which was a sign there was a good depth of water for anchorage, they broke forth with one voice:

"This is the Port of Monterey, which we have sought; it is exactly as reported by Sebastian Vizcaino Vizcaino and Cabrera Bueno."

Father Crespi had written that if the Bay of Monterey were not discovered, "in default of it we have this most famous one of San Francisco, wherein to plant the standard of the Most Holy Cross." Little did Don Gaspar de Portola, Captain of Dragoons in the Regiment of Spain, gazing on the waters of San Francisco Bay, dream that in one hundred and forty years his military affiliation would furnish inspiration for use in a commemorative pageant; nor was the good Padre Juan Crespi, when he stated this exceedingly large port "could not only contain all the navies of His Catholic Majesty, but those of all Europe as well," aware that he had uttered a note of prophecy for the distant month of October, 1909.

ISS

M

TROTTER had been pacing the veranda for twenty minutes, glancing impatiently down the trail for the guide who was to show her the wonders of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. Between glances she feasted her eyes on the beauties of the scene.

Far below, the ruins of a great city apparently-were spread out. Another Pompeii stood revealed. The bastions, turrets, pinnacles, and sculptured facades of the Titanic castles glowed in the morning light. Other shapes chiseled by the Great Sculptor suggested the towers and domes of a grand cathedral, from the towers of which, presently, would come the call of early vespers; yonder rose the walls of a fort, buttressed and battlemented. A butte lifted on its ragged shoulder the hull of a battleship.

Miss Trotter sighed. She had entertained thoughts of photographing the Canyon. Photograph it! How could one. get at it without the aid of a flying machine? Or, given the flying machine, how content one's self with a black-andwhite reproduction of the panoramic picture, in which red-the whole gamut of reds-brown, blue, yellow and royal purple, were mingled?

A step on the veranda turned her thoughts to the guide. He stood before her, a tall, good looking fellow in brown corduroy, brown, high-topped boots and broad-brimmed sombrero. "Picturesque," was her mental comment.

"You are going to take me into the canyon," she said, not at all interrogatively. Miss Trotter, it may be remarked, in passing, was positive, pretty and peremptory. "Why-er-ves," the young man answered, taking off his hat with a graceful

sweep.

"I'm not accustomed to riding, so you'd better get a mule or a burro for me. They

are sure-footed; and I shall feel safer when we're going down Jacob's Ladder and around Cape Horn. And, guide"—he was turning to carry out her orders"have the hotel people put us up a good lunch. I intend to stay down there all day."

"Wouldn't you like to go to Rowe's Point first?" diffidently suggested the one addressed. "According to the guide book, a most comprehensive view of the amphitheatre can be obtained there."

"How far is it?"

"The Point is about two miles distant from the hotel, by wagon road. The road twists in and out among the trees, and to all appearance there isn't a canyon within one hundred miles. Suddenly, without warning, you step out on the level rock platform that rounds off this promontory; and before you know what has happened, you are gazing into a hole that runs down to the center of the earth."

"Intelligent above his class," was Miss Trotter's second mental verdict, as she stood irresolute, uncertain whether to adopt the guide's suggestion or to reject it.

"We'll go down into the Canyon to-day," she announced, "and to-morrow I'll take the wagon road to Rowe's Point in the morning, and the Rim Trail, to Moran's Point, where the artist's celebrated picture was painted, in the afternoon. Consider yourself engaged for the day."

The guide was gone but a short time. Returning, he dismounted from his horse, and packed the lunch which the bell boy brought, in the saddle-bags; then leading the diminutive burro to the horse-block, he assisted Miss Trotter to mount.

"Don't attempt to direct him," he advised. "Give him his head, and he will carry you with perfect safety."

He swung into his saddle and started off, Miss Trotter following timorously.