Chapter 5 of A History of California, the Spanish period. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 5 Cortez and California. By far the most important of the peoples, other than the Americans, who intervened in California history were the Spaniards. They first found the land for the white man and endeavored through centuries to occupy it, succeeding at length in doing so. Once arrived they stamped California for ever with romantic interest and played a vital part as affecting the ultimate destiny of the province. First in the list of names of those Spaniards whose achievements directly influenced the course of California history was the great Conquistador, or Conqueror, Hernando Cortez. Following the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492, the Spaniards had made settlements in the West Indies and a little later in Panama. Some of their navigators had sailed along the Atlantic coast of the land we now call Mexico, and one of them had applied to it the name Nueva Espana, or New Spain. In 1519 Cortez landed at Veracruz with a tiny Spanish army, and after two years effected what we usually term the Conquest of Mexico. This amounted to little more than the reduction of Mexico City and the route there too from Veracruz. It was in 1521 with the definitive occupation of Mexico City that the real conquest of New Spain or Mexico began. Mexico City became the principal base from which expeditions were sent out in all directions. The narrow belt ranging south to Panama was soon subjected. There remained the ever-widening spaces to the north. Along one of the lines of the northern advance was California, or the California as the Spaniards often called it. This included far more than the Alta California of later days which corresponded to the present American state of California. As already pointed out, the California began at Cape San Lucas at the tip of Baja California Peninsula, and ran indefinitely northward. It was towards this elongated California, or California, that the Spaniards for many years directed their attention. After native resistance had been overcome at Mexico City in 1521, the Spaniards pushed westward, and by 1522 had already reached the Pacific Coast in the province of Michoacán, where Cortez formed a settlement at Zacatula. In three years he fought his way across a continent, a continent which it took the Anglo-Saxon successors of John Cabot three centuries to traverse. To be sure the cases were by no means parallel in their difficulties, but it helps one to understand the tremendous energy and force which the Spaniards brought to their conquests when these are compared to the much slower advance of their English rivals. Cortez, at this time, enjoyed a power which many a so-called absolute monarch might have envied. He was Governor, Captain General, and Chief Justice of New Spain, and besides had full authority to make conquests as he pleased. He was indeed subject to the King of Spain, but this control was somewhat shadowy, since he did not need to get preliminary royal assent to any measures he might take. Enemies he had, and these were for several years the principal check on his effective action. Arrived at Zacatula, Cortez prepared to make explorations of the unknown coasts to the north. To appreciate the objects he had in mind it will first be necessary to consider contemporary ideas of the new world. In the time of Columbus, and for years afterward, many people believed that the voyages of 1492 had discovered merely a new route to the already known lands of Eastern Asia. What we now call the West Indies were dimly identified with the islands of Japan, and the nearby mainland was held to be Asia. Two centuries before an Italian named Marco Polo had crossed Asia to China where he lived for a number of years and was highly regarded, so much so that the Chinese eventually made him a god. Footnote number one. His statue was the only bearded deity in the temple of Tsotsing, singularly known as the temple of the 500 gods at Canton, China. This temple recently burned down. End of footnote. At length he returned to Europe and wrote an account of the far eastern world. Among other matters he told of the reputedly wealthy island of Sipongo, Japan, and of a straight to the south of China whence men could proceed to India and in that way back to Europe. Marco Polo's account was confirmed in its essentials by other travelers, for example by the Englishman Mandeville who crossed Asia early in the 14th century. It was logical to suppose that Columbus had come upon these distant lands which Europeans had long known, and indeed one only has to look at the map to see that the eastern coasts of Asia and North America roughly correspond. Naturally there began at once a search for the straight which should lead to the riches of India. Men looked for it at Panama where indeed the land narrows and the ocean was soon found on the other side, but the straight eluded them. When they sought it in the south they found that South America was of continental proportions. It was generally known that there were large islands south of the straights between China and India, but the existence of a continent was unsuspected. South America was therefore styled the New World, while North America did not share in this appellation until much later. The discovery of the Strait of Magellan in 1520 did not satisfy the demand for the traditionally known waterway. According to the information supplied by Marco Polo, that was much farther north. Central America was soon traversed but no straight was found. Men then began to believe that North America might be a southeastward projection from Asia, of which there was also early evidence based on the actual fact of the peninsula of Kamchatka. To be sure, nobody had any idea of the vastness of its size, but North America was for a long time not regarded as unusually large. Opinion was general among the Spaniards that it would prove to be a little wider than it was at the place where they had crossed it in New Spain, and that a comparatively short voyage to the North would take them to Asia. It will be recalled, too, that this idea persisted among the English colonists of the 17th century, as witnessed there, under the circumstances, string-like grants from sea to sea. After Magellan's long voyage across the Pacific had demonstrated that Asia was far away, men gradually began to realize that North America was a hitherto unknown continent. But such is the strength of an idea once people become possessed of it. A belief in some of the geographical notions which depended on their earlier conception of North America as Asia was still maintained, although there was no longer any necessary reason for doing so. Most persistent of all these ideas was the belief in the existence of a strait. Since it was certainly not in the south, then, obviously, people thought, it must be in the north. It was just a little farther than the last explorer had gone. People were tremendously interested in finding the shortest route to the rich lands of Asia and the Indies, but there were many remarkable things besides that which they hoped and even expected to come upon. Life in Europe in the Middle Ages had been comparatively stagnant and circumscribed when there began to occur a series of remarkable happenings which broadened men's horizons and fired their imaginations. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, men left their homes in Western Europe to take part in the Crusades. Trade, wealth, and city life developed. Inventions like printing, gunpowder, and the compass offered in calculably great opportunities for diversification of existing conditions. And the Renaissance brought with it not only a revival of ancient learning, but also a receptivity of minds such as the world had not known since the Paraclian Age. Then came the discovery of America which, even while it was still considered to be Asia, afforded an extraordinary stimulus to European imaginations. And this was accentuated after Cortes and Pizarro revealed by their spectacular conquests that the New World was well stocked with the riches. Men talked of the wonderful things about which the ancients had written and of those which Marco Polo and other travelers had seen. Meanwhile, the fifteenth and sixteenth century novel of chivalry had caught and fixed this expectant credulity in the popular mind. Men began to believe that the fantastic adventures of the wandering knights who single-handedly performed the most extraordinary feats of valor and met with such marvelous experiences might almost be duplicated in real life. Europe was far from having cast off its medieval cloak, however, in the pursuit of things that were new. It was still in the grip of tradition and the sanction of old belief. What they sought in the New World was not so much that which was new, but rather those old but nonetheless wonderful things about which their ancient and medieval masters had taught them. It was no wonder that the Spaniards expected to find rich cities to plunder, especially after their conquests in Mexico and Peru had given them concrete proofs of their existence. These lands, however, were as nothing in their wealth to the others they hoped to find. Men had known of the seven cities before they had ever heard of America, and now these mysterious municipalities located themselves at large in the New World. While at length they were pinned down to the wretched Moqui Pueblos of New Mexico. There also developed the story of Quivira, that great and strange kingdom which so many had heard of, or even claimed to have seen, but which nobody in fact ever found. If Ponce de Leon sought a fountain of youth, it was not that he was a simpleton, but because men had believed in such thing for centuries, and now that so many ancient marvels had been revealed, why not also a fountain of youth? Great masses, or even mountains of gold, islands of pearls, and rivers of pitch, were quite in the normal course of expectation, and Potosí and other rich minds eventually provided them with a first named. From time immemorial, too, there had been stories of Amazon islands where nobody dwelt but women, and not less sanctioned by authority was the story of the gilded man whose kingdom was so rich that his people painted him with gold in the morning and washed him off at night. Then there was the terrestrial paradise which had found a place on ancient maps, and was looked for in America by the Spaniards of the early sixteenth century. In fine, those things which people now would consider super natural marvels were quite the expected thing among the half medieval, half modern conquerors who set foot in the two Americas some four centuries ago. Cortez, like the other men of his day, had all of these ideas in mind. He was eager to ascertain the truth with regard to the geography of North America, not from any desire for the advancement of science and knowledge, but because he wished to improve his material fortunes. In particular, he desired to find the mysterious and elusive straight in the hope that it might prove to be the shortest route from Europe to the wealth of the Far East. His letters also tell of Amazon Islands, mounds of gold, and populous cities just a few days' journey farther on. Finally, he hoped to acquire new kingdoms for his sovereign and fresh honors as well as wealth for himself. Yet it was ten years before Cortez was able to send out his first expedition to the North. Many things detained him. He had to set up a new government, reward his companions with grants of land and Indian serfs, build a superb capital at Mexico City, suppress native revolts, and extend his conquest to meet those of the Spaniards pressing north from Panama. And not least of all, he had to encounter the determined hostility of his many and powerful personal enemies. He was accused of aiming at independence, and a royal audencia or body of men whose principal function was to act as a high court of justice, vested also with other functions of the civil power, was established as a check on his authority. Cortez himself went to Spain in 1528 to plead his case in person, returning triumphant in 1530. Meanwhile, Cortez had not been idle along the Pacific Coast. With the founding of a Spanish port at Zacatula in 1522 he had started to build four ships. Work was unavoidably very slow, however. Aside from the difficulty of maintaining the settlement itself, it was necessary to bring everything but timber to the place. There was not so much as a nail in all New Spain, and there were no skilled workmen and no well-developed methods of transportation to take the many essential things to Zacatula where they were wanted. When matters were progressing somewhat there was a fire which burned the warehouse, and a fresh start had to be made. Nevertheless, after four years' time his ships were ready in 1526 for the long-planned voyage, when orders came to send them across the Pacific to the Moluccas where a Spanish fleet was reported to be in need of relief. Accordingly, in 1527 Cortez's fleet was dispatched to the far southwest, and the northwest voyage was postponed. Cortez's facilities had now so greatly improved that he had five more ships well on the way to completion in 1528 at the time he left for Spain. Thereupon the hostile Audencia caused the work to be stopped, and the hulks were left to decay. Nothing daunted Cortez started to build four more in 1532. His enemies trumped up charges against him with a view to checking his project, but a new Audancia temporarily sighted with him and the boats were soon gotten ready. Cortez's first expedition was composed of two ships and their crews under the command of Diego Ortado de Mendoza. This was regarded as a preliminary to a later and greater expedition. Ortado was merely to seek information and not to make any conquests. He was to sail along the coast, except when passing Nueva Galicia, which was ruled by Cortez's great enemy Guzmán, who had only recently conquered it. In 1532 Ortado started up the coast, meeting with difficulties he put into shore within Guzmán's realm, but that individual forbade him to take on water and supplies or even to make repairs. Going to sea again, Ortado found himself confronted by a mutiny of the sailors, some of whom transferred to the other ship with a view to returning. That ship was wrecked in the Bay of Banderas in Tepec, and all but two or three of the men were killed by the Indians, while Guzmán seized the wreckage. Meanwhile, Ortado sailed on and some say that neither he nor his ship was ever heard of again. According to others, he and all his men were killed by the Indians at the River Fuerte and Sinaloa. This story was reported by the Indians. Decidedly the voyage had been a failure. Not only were no marvelous things discovered, but also the expedition had been a total loss. Cortes was not discouraged, however, and blamed his misfortune to Guzmán's treatment of Ortado. At least he had acquired more accurate knowledge of the difficulties to be encountered and information about the coasts. Furthermore, the expedition had discovered the Trés Marías Islands not far beyond which was the beginning of the California's. In 1533, 1534 came the second sea expedition under the auspices of Cortes in his endeavors to pierce the mysteries of the North. Diego Becerra was in command, while Hernando de Grijalba had charge of the second of the two ships. The latter almost at once parted company with Becerra's ship, presumably under the stress of bad weather, and never again rejoined it. It is possible that he wished to gain riches and glory on his own account through the discovery of the marvelous things Cortes had in mind, rather than receive his relatively slight portion as a result of Becerra's achievements. The example of Cortes, who had invaded New Spain against the orders of the governor of Cuba, his superior officer, was frequently followed by the adventurous leaders of the 16th century. The discovery of the since-called Riviera de Giguello Islands, some 300 miles due south from Baja California, was the principal result of his voyage. Meanwhile, Becerra, who is described as an arbitrary and disagreeable man, was put to death by his crew in the first pilot, Fortuna Jimenez, who had been privy to the murder now took command. Jimenez proceeded with a voyage and came at length to obey in what he believed to be an island. Here he and his men landed, but presently were set upon by the Indians, who killed Jimenez and twenty others. The few who escaped made their way back to Nueva Galicia. There Guzman again showed his hands, seizing the boat with a view to making explorations himself. Jimenez had in fact entered the Bay of La Paz in Baja California, being the first white man, so far as is known, ever to have set foot in the California's. The records are so obscure, however, that it is not certain whether he was there late in 1533 or early in 1534. Though this expedition had ended in almost as great a disaster as that of 1532, it did contribute something toward Spanish projects of northwestward advance. Jimenez's men brought back reports about the existence of at least one marble in the newly discovered land. They told of the wealth of the region in pearls, perhaps even brought some with them since the story accorded with the facts. Here then was one of the islands of pearls which the Spaniards had expected to find, and here was a definite and clearly recognizable incentive for a fresh voyage. Cortes was now more eager than ever for the project. He sought to restrain Guzman from making a voyage, and procured a decree of the Audensia requiring Guzman to return the stolen ship. But that body also forbade Cortes to make an expedition. Cortes protested that this decision was against his right to make conquests as he chose. When the Audensia did not yield, he resolved to go anyway and to lead the expedition himself. The moment that this announcement got abroad, volunteers began to pour him. Such was Cortes's reputation as a conqueror and a finder of loot. Soon Cortes had more men than he could use, and in the spring of 1535 set sail with three vessels. On May 3rd he entered the Bay of La Paz, and named that and the island, as he believed the land to be, Santa Cruz, the day on the religious calendar that he had made his appearance there. Cortes at once began to establish a settlement. But he was already face to face with the difficulties white men always have in maintaining themselves in an undeveloped land. Supplies were short, so two of the ships were twice sent back for more, and for the rest of Cortes as volunteers, many of whom he had been obliged to leave behind. On the second of these voyages one of the vessels was wrecked, and the crew and the colonists returned to Mexico. Cortes and Grihalva now took the remaining two vessels and went to get more supplies. On the return to Baja California they encountered yet another of the problems which was for centuries to be an important factor in the history of the California's. The severe storms which are so frequent in the Gulf of California were such at this time that Grihalva was unable to get back at all while Cortes, whose pilot was killed as a result of a fall, was obliged to take the wheel himself in order to make his way across the Gulf. Upon his arrival at La Paz he found that 23 men had died of starvation. The colony could not be maintained with the one vessel Cortes now had, and the land itself was unable to provide the needs of white men. So Cortes returned to New Spain to see whether he might procure relief. Eventually he seems to have given up the idea and perhaps toward the end of 1536 sent ships to take away the surviving colonists. Clearly the result had been disappointing, though in the light of the conditions as they were failure was almost inevitable. Cortes might possibly have given up his efforts at this point, but for the happening in 1536 of a spectacular event. His enemy Guzman had been deprived of his post, but Cortes' powers were now also greatly restricted as a result of the appointment of a viceroy of New Spain. Mendoza, the first viceroy, had reached Mexico City in 1535, and henceforth was Cortes' principal rival in the northward conquests. The spectacular event referred to was the arrival at Culeocan Sinaloa, then the farthest north of the Spanish settlements along the Pacific Coast, of Álvar Núñez Cadeza de Vaca. Núñez, or Cadeza de Vaca as he is more often called, had been a member of the ill-fated Narvez expedition, which had landed in Florida in 1528 and had gone utterly to pieces. Núñez made his way westward and he became a slave of the Indians on an island off the coast of Texas. Eventually he escaped and wandered across the continent until at length he reached Culeocan. His story would in any event have created great interest, but it became especially significant when he told of the great kingdom of Quivira and the seven cities of Cebula not far beyond where he had passed. He himself had not seen them, but he had heard many tales about them. This story gave an extraordinary stimulus to Spanish exploration, especially since it corresponded so exactly with what the Spaniards had long expected to find in the north. As soon as the viceroy was able to get a respite from other pressing affairs, he prepared to take advantage of this information. In 1539 he sent Marcos de Niza, a Franciscan friar, to investigate the truth of Núñez's tale. Friar Marcos, accompanied by the negro Estevanico, who had made the same journey with Núñez and by some Indians, crossed Sonora and Arizona to the vicinity of the Molqui Pueblos of New Mexico. There indeed he saw Cebula, but from a distance, for the Indians had been hostile and had killed Estevanico. But Cebula, to Friar Marcos' eyes, seemed something very different from what it actually was. To him it looked larger than Mexico City, though reputed to be the smallest city of the famous seven. The actual poverty of this Molqui town caused men of a later day to regard Friar Marcos as a liar, or at least as a victim of a wild imagination. Something of the latter may be true, but surely his report was what many another might have made in that credulous age. At any rate his story caused a tremendous stir in all of New Spain. The viceroy at once got ready the famous expeditions, of which more later, that penetrated to New Mexico and Kansas, one branch of which was the sea expedition of Hernando de Alarcon in 1540 up the Gulf of California. It is now time to return to Cortez. Cortez's hopes were revived, if indeed he had ever given them up by the stories of Núñez, and when he learned that the viceroy was sending out Friar Marcos to get information he protested vigorously, asserting his own rights to make the conquests in the north. Characteristically, however, he did not wait for a decision upon his claims, but resolved to be beforehand in the discoveries. So in July 1539 he sent out three vessels, of respectively 120, 35, and 20 tons, under the command of Francisco de Olloa. The smallest ship was soon wrecked, but the others went up the coast to the head of the Gulf, and were the first to discover that Santa Cruz, or Baja California, was not an island but a peninsula. Returning down the Gulf, Olloa rounded the peninsula and started up the western coast. He seems to have entered Magdalena Bay and to have gone on to Cerros Island in 28 degrees latitude, at or nearer which he made a stay of three months. Several attempts were made to go farther north, but the best Olloa could do was reach a point in about 29 degrees, which became known to contemporary map-makers as the Caballel Engaño, or Cape Disappointment. In April 1540 one of the ships was sent back to report, and made the return in safety. Olloa himself and the 35 ton vessel remained to carry on the expedition, and what became of him is not known. No doubt he and his ship, with all on board, were one of the many sacrifices, by wreck or other disaster, in the attempts of the Spaniards to reach the land of gold farther north. Cortes had now contributed greatly to the movements which were to bring about the eventual occupation of the California's, though his efforts had been a losing venture for himself. Furthermore, he had been stripped of much of the authority he had originally possessed, wherefore he sailed to Spain in 1540 to seek redress. This ended Cortes's activities not only in the California's, but also in New Spain, for he never returned. In 1547 he died. Thus passed the first of the great Spanish explorers who endeavored to make their way to the California's and to penetrate the mysteries of the North. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of A History of California of the Spanish period. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 6. Origin and Application of the name California. The excerpt in old French, from the chanson de Roulon, was recorded by Sonia. One of the most prized possessions of present-day Californians is the beautiful and beloved name of the state, a name which has a lure that has carried its fame perhaps farther than that of any other state in the Union. Footnote No. 1 During two years' travel in Europe, the writer found that California was generally known, but that few of the other American states could be called by name. In footnote. Yet the origin and application of the name were for a long time something of a mystery, and neither one nor the other is fully clear yet. California was not named for a member of the royal family in the homeland of the conquerors, as happened in the case of Virginia, for Elizabeth the Virgin Queen, or Carolina, for King Charles II, Maryland, Georgia, Louisiana. Unlike Massachusetts, Connecticut, Texas, and others too, it was not an Indian word named for an Indian tribe. This being recognized, people for many years, centuries after the name was first applied, indulged in guesses as to both the origin and application for which the evidence seemed to have disappeared. Those conjectures are now mere historical curiosities, illustrations in the extreme of the propensity of men to imagine the missing link in a chain of evidence. But as one hears these theories advanced by some even to the present day, it may be worthwhile to notice them. Most frequent among them has been the suggestion of a derivation from two Latin words, calida fornax, or hot furnace. Baja California might well have seemed to Cortez and his men as hot as a furnace, it is said, or the name might also have occurred to them in connection with the Indian temescal or sweat house underground. Similarly, the Catalan word californo, hot oven, has been brought forward. Cal eforno, lime and furnace or lime kiln provides another guess, though cal is Spanish and forno is Catalan. It is doubtful whether the Indians of Baja California had houses made of mortar in early times, thus making use of lime kilns, though later they came to have them. Another view was that it sprang from colafon, resin, on the ground that the Spaniards might have called out that word when they saw the resinous pine trees and decided to apply it as a name, perhaps as colafonia, gradually corrupting it to California. Another writer suggested calafonix, based on the Spanish word for cove and the Latin for vault, in that there is an arch under a rock in the bay or cove at one place where Cortez and his men landed in Baja California. These are a few theories out of many, all of which were barren guesses unsustainable by a shred of evidence. It may be said that it was not the habit of Spanish explorers to assign Latin names or to mix Spanish with Latin or with Catalan in such a matter. A more likely suggestion was that the Spaniards might have misunderstood some Indian word and applied it as a name, but this was a mere guess. To Edward Everett Hale, distinguished divine and man of letters, is due the clearing away of the greater part of the cobwebs surrounding the origin of the name. In 1862 he chanced upon an old Spanish novel entitled Las Cercas de Esplandean, or the Deeds of Esplandean, and found that it referred to a strange and romantic island, California. He at once jumped to the conclusion that this must have been the source once the discoverers procured the name. Other men, before his time, knew of the California of the Ceregas. For example, the celebrated historian of Spanish literature, George Ticknor, who refers to the word in a volume that he published in 1849. But neither he nor anybody else seems to have thought of its connection with the American state of the same name. Or if they did so, they do not seem to have recorded their impressions. The Ceregas de Esplandean was one of those fantastic novels of chivalry which so accurately represented, and in turn influenced the minds of Europeans in the period of transition from medieval to modern times. It was a sequel to one of the earliest, and undoubtedly the greatest of these books, the Amadeus de Gaula, the Amadeus of Gaul, of the Portuguese Vasco de Loboeira. The Amadeus was written at about the opening of the 15th century, or late in the 14th. Loboeira, the author, died in 1403. The book had a most extraordinary vogue, being indeed one of the most popular works of all time. It was translated into every important European tongue, and the mighty and heroic Amadeus of the novel became almost a household God. It is said that it was unsafe to refer slidingly to Amadeus, for some excited admirer might take upon himself to avenge this hero of romance. The novel became even more popular, perhaps, after the invention of printing, since its distribution was of course very greatly facilitated. Between 1492 and 1504, Garcy Ordonez de Montalvo completed a translation of the work into Spanish in four volumes, and attached to it a fifth, written by himself, the Ceregas de Esplandian. The original date of publication is not clear, but a copy of the year 1508 exists in the British Museum, and there is a reference to an edition of 1498. There were a number of reissues, for example, in 1519, 1521, 1525, and 1526, years contemporaneous with Cortez's early activities in New Spain. In accord with the literary practices of his day, Ordonez de Montalvo pretended that he was merely translating from the Greek, a manuscript of the grand maestro Elisabeth, who saw and took part in what he relates. The story hinges on a supposed siege of Constantinople, when all the forces of paganism launched an attack against the emperor and his Christian allies in the city. In the midst of the siege, the pagans received unexpected succor from Queen Caliphia of the island's California. Here is the story as it appears in the Ceregas. Quote, I wish that you should now know of a matter so very strange that neither in writings nor from the memory of people is it possible to discover how, on the following day, the city was on the point of being lost, and how, in that moment of peril, it was saved. No ye that at the right hand of the Indies there is an island named California, very close to that part of the terrestrial paradise which was inhabited by black women, without a single man among them, and that they lived in the manner of Amazons. They were robust of body, with strong and passionate hearts and great virtues. The island itself is one of the wildest in the world on account of the bold and craggy rocks. Their weapons were all made of gold. The island everywhere abounds with gold and precious stones, and upon it no other metal was found. They lived in caves well excavated. They had many ships with which they sailed to other coasts to make forays, and the men whom they took as prisoners they killed. In this island, named California, there are many griffins. In no other part of the world can they be found. And they're ruled over that island of California, a queen of majestic proportions, more beautiful than all the others and in the very vigor of her womanhood. She was desirous of accomplishing great deeds, she was valiant and courageous, and ardent with a brave heart, and had ambitions to execute nobler actions than had been performed by any other ruler." The upshot was that Caliphia, the queen of the island, resolved to lead her women to the war against the Christians. She was excused for this decision on the ground that she did not understand what Christians were. Therefore, she and her best warriors set out in their ships, taking with them five hundred griffins which were in the habit of being fed upon the men captured in battle. Served at Constantinople, she found the pagan cause was going badly, so she sought permission to make the attack alone with her forces on the following day, adding that the pagans would then see a battle the strangest ever seen and never before dreamed of. The next day the dusky Californians advanced to the fray and at the proper moment let loose the griffins. Thereupon there was great carnage among the Christians, many of whom were seized and eaten by these birds, while others were carried into the air and allowed to fall, being dashed to pieces. The arrows of the Christians and blows of swords and lances were not sufficient to wound these thick-feathered, tough-bodied creatures of the air. Then Caliphia called on the exulting pagans to charge and complete the victory. But here disaster befell for the griffins, quote, not knowing friend from foe seized the Turks in the same manner that they had seized the Christians, and soaring high in the air with them, let them drop to earth and thus killed every one of them, unquote. This turned victory into defeat and, when this was seen by Queen Caliphia, she was sad in a grand manner. The griffins were called off, and Caliphia and her Amazons made a vigorous attack. Though the Queen performed prodigies of valor, she was unable to take the city. Thereupon Caliphia joined with Bradiaro, the sultan of Laquia, in a challenge to the old hero Amadis de Gaula and to his son Esplan Dion, great emulator of his father's deeds. A handsome black maiden was sent to the Christian camp and was courteously received. Amadis accepted the challenge and agreed that Caliphia and the sultan might name the weapons. But the envoy had something more than this message to bring back. She declared that all the Christian leaders were very beautiful to look upon, but that none of them compared in this respect with the noble Esplan Dion. Caliphia now displayed some very human traits. She yearned to see and talk with Esplan Dion and therefore decided to pay a visit herself to the Christian headquarters. All night she puzzled over the momentous question of whether she should go in military attire or simply as a woman. The woman in her one, and she prepared to array herself in a way to make an impression. Not only did she dress herself in rich robes covered with gold and precious stones, but she also wrote a steed which was truly more marvelous than had ever been seen and was calculated to attract notice anywhere. And at her destination she, too, fell a victim to the charms of the beauteous Esplan Dion, but maintained sufficient recollection of her purported errand to arrange the terms of the combat. Esplan Dion did not return her admiration for he already had a sweetheart in the person of the Emperor's daughter, Leonorina, and he was well content. In due time the double duel took place. Esplan Dion betwixt looks at his beloved fiancee, who viewed the affair from a convenient tower, and attention to the fight overcame radiaro. Meanwhile, Caliphia was reigning blows on Amadeus, but he caught them on his shield or avoided them altogether. Amadeus was too much of a gentleman to draw his sword against a lady, but he did not disdain to take a broken piece of her own lance and dealer such blows that he knocked her senseless. Presently the Queen got up and protested against his trying to conquer her with a club. The battle was resumed and once more did Amadeus do telling execution with his lance, and once more Caliphia was stunned. By this time the Christian hero had contrived to strip the Queen of her shield and helmet, and she had also dropped her sword. So Caliphia was constrained to yield. There is more to the story, but the rest is of less interest. Caliphia became a prisoner of the Christians and was given to Lea Norina. Thus, she saw much of that lady's fiancee and fell desperately in love with him. Not, however, until he had already married Lea Norina did she make him aware of the fact, and then she declared herself to him. Andeon was now generous in the extreme. He could not marry her himself, so he gave her to his cousin Talanque, while another cousin married Caliphia's sister. The marriages took place in Christian form. Caliphia and all her Amazons became Christians, the Pagans were defeated, and the now pious Caliphia gave her island of California with all its gold and precious stones to the Christians. And thus did California cease to be a land of Amazons only.  Much of the story represents the oft-reiterated recording of ancient traditions. The Amazons, Griffons, and the terrestrial paradise are of most ancient lineage. The last named was the Garden of Eden of the Old Testament, which medieval and early modern Europeans believed to be definitely and recognizably located on the map. Many such things were sought by the early Spanish explorers in the Americas, and it seems probable that the accounts of Columbus are what occasioned the insertion of the tale about Caliphia and the California in the Serragus. In a report of 1493 about his first voyage, Columbus told him an island on the way to the Indies where women alone lived, being visited occasionally by men from other parts. These women were warlike, making use of the bow and arrow. It is hardly necessary to add that Columbus did not see the women, he had merely heard of them. Again in 1498 when Columbus was sailing along the coast of Venezuela, still laboring under the delusion that he was in Asiatic waters, he believed that he was very near the terrestrial paradise, and so reported. Other men at the same time told similar stories. The fact that the Caliphia tale is not an intrinsic part of the Serragus, but merely thrust in as an extra, renders it all the more likely that the author was influenced by the accounts of Columbus's voyage, which had fired men's imagination with what seemed to be a rediscovery of islands and peoples that Europeans had long known traditionally. Incidentally, it may be remarked that even the Gryphons were located eventually in America. In 1647, one Basilius published a work in which a description of the western coast of North America was given. In that somewhat terrifying region there were many wild animals, including Gryphons, and this is not a fable but the truth. Columbus did the Gryphons return to their homeland of the Serragus in California. One thing more. It can at least hardly fail to attract attention that the beautiful Caliphia and her charming maidens were of suspiciously African descent. It would seem that the color line was not very rigidly drawn some four centuries ago, for the author everywhere refers to the lovely Californians in terms of the highest approval, and does not disdain to marry them in the end to white princes of the royal blood. The sequel, provided by Ordoñas de Montalvo, was by no means the only one to the adventures of Amadis. In all, there were 14 volumes in the series. Caliphia and the Californians reappear in book 7 entitled Lisuarte de Grecia e Perion de Gaula. In that volume the siege of Constantinople still rages, but this time Caliphia fights on the side of the Christians. There were a number of editions of this book, at least one of which appeared as early as 1514. There is hardly room for a doubt that Cortes and his men were familiar with the story of the island California. All Europe had nearly gone mad over the romances of chivalry, and the Spaniards in particular were looking for the same wonderful experiences in the Americas as the wandering knights were want to have in the realm of fancy. There are references in the work by Bernal Díaz, one of the historians of the conquest of New Spain, to incidents of the Amadis de Gaula. For example, in telling of the towns that he and the other soldiers of Cortes saw, he said, we were amazed and said it was like the enchantments they tell of in the legend of Amadis. Also, one of the soldiers was nicknamed Agraias because he was supposed to resemble a character of that name in Amadis de Gaula. Since the Sergos de Esplan Dion was attached to the Amadis, it could hardly have escaped notice, besides which it was popular on its own account, though much inferior to Lobaira's work. It is interesting to note Cervantes' opinion of it in the Don Quixote. When the curate and the barber were overhauling the library of Don Quixote in order to destroy the books which had so shaken their friend's mind, they came across the Amadis and the Esplan Dion. The former was saved as the best of its kind, but the latter was the first to go to the bonfire. Verily, said the curate, the goodness of the father shall not avail the son. Granted that the name was suggested to the discoverers of the California's from the romance of the Sergos de Esplan Dion, the question arises, where did Ordonias de Montalvo get it? There have been many guesses on this point, similar to those formerly made about the origin of the word in the minds of the conquerors. One of these is that the author derived it from the Greek Chalos or Chali and Ornos, the two together meaning beautiful bird for the griffins. Another surmises a derivation from the Arabic word caliphate, meaning province. In Spanish it is said this might have become caliphon for a large province due to the presence of the argumentative on, from which it would be but a step to California or California. To be sure, Ordonias de Montalvo might have invented the name, and if he did it would be profitless to guess just how it might have occurred to him. But there is a strong reason for believing that he followed a literary precedent in his use of the word. The chanson de Roland, the famous epic poem of the French believed to have been composed late in the 11th century or possibly later, there occur the following lines. This may be translated roughly as follows, quote, Dead is my nephew who conquered so many lands, And now the Saxons rebel against me, And the Hungarians, Bulgarians and many others, the Romans, the Puleyn, The Pallians and the Romans. And now my nephew, it is said this may be translated roughly as follows, quote, Dead is my nephew who conquered so many lands, And now the Saxons rebel against me, than many others, the Romans, the Poulain, and those of Palermo, Sicily, and those of Africa, and those of California." It is to be noted that here is a catalogue of enemy nations in a list which begins with those in the north and works to the south and east. The learned commentators on the chanson have never been able to explain the California, but gave their opinion that it stands probably for the caliph's domain. There can be no question but that a learned man like Ordonias de Montalvo was familiar with the chanson de Roland, especially since it was cognate to the material that he himself employed. Certainly the cycle of tales about the Knights of the Round Table at the court of King Arthur was very well known to Ordonias and the other Romancers, for the heroes of those stories appear frequently in the novels of chivalry. The appearance of California in this list of peoples and lands, of which several were certainly not Christian, might well have caught Ordonias' attention when he himself was making a similar catalogue of the nations. California is a perfectly natural Spanish form for California, especially since E and O have not infrequently changed from one to the other in the history of Spanish words. This derivation of the word California can perhaps never be proved, but it is too plausible and it may be added too interesting to be overlooked. Thus does the name California become linked with one of the greatest poems in history and the date of its origin is placed four centuries earlier. One wonders indeed if there might not have been some long-past Muslim realm so-called, at least by the peoples of Europe, carrying the name far back to the great days of Baghdad and Damascus. The story of the application of the name to the Californias may some day be revealed in the archives of Spain, but it is at present shrouded in more mystery than is the origin of the word. In Cortez's so-called fourth letter to the king, dated October 15, 1524, he has a paragraph about an expedition by one of his lieutenants in which there is the following story. Quote, He likewise brought me an account to the chiefs of the province of Seguiton, who affirmed that there is an island inhabited only by women without any men, and that at given times men from the mainland visit them. If they conceive they keep the female children to which they give birth, but the males they throw away. This island is ten days' journey from the province, and many of them went thither and sought, and told me also that it is very rich in pearls and gold." Six years later Cortez's great enemy Guzman, who was in the midst of his conquest of Nueva Galicia, made virtually the same report. A portion of his letter to the king of Spain, dated July 8, 1530, reads, according to the translation in the Pilgrimus of Senual Purchase, as follows. Quote, From thence, Ostotlan, ten days further I shall go to find the Amazons, which some say dwell in the sea, summon an arm of the sea, and that they are rich and accounted of the people for goddesses and whiter than the other women. They use bows, arrows, and targets, have many in great towns. At a certain time they admit them, i.e. the men, to accompany them, which bring up the males as these females issue." These documents show that the Spaniards were expecting to find just such an island as the California of Romance. When Fortun Jimenez, on behalf of Cortez, reached Baja California in 1533 to 1534, he believed it to be an island. But he also found many other islands in the vicinity, and most important of all, found pearls. Jimenez must have applied names to the lands he found, but the disaster which befell his expedition precluded the saving of any records of the voyage. When Cortez himself landed at La Paz in Baja California, he named the site and also the bay Santa Cruz. Clearly, if he knew the name applied by Jimenez he did not retain it. Furthermore, he would not have been inclined to honor the names given by Jimenez, for that worthy had murdered Becerra, Cortez's own kinsman and the leader he had designated for the voyage. It is said, too, that Cortez never himself employed the name California in reference to the land which had been discovered under his auspices. Many writers who dealt with Cortez's expedition of 1535, for example Gomorrah, Bernal Diaz, and Herrera, referred to the land as California. But their works were published a number of years after the name had become definitely fixed. A map of 1541 purporting to illustrate Cortez's activities in the Pacific has the word California on it, but this is believed to have been added late in the 18th century by Archbishop of Mexico Lorenzana, who was getting out in addition of Cortez's letters. On the Ilyoa expedition of 1539 to 1540 diaries were kept by Pedro de Palencia and Francisco Preciado. The diary of the former in the original Spanish is extant, but that of Preciado is at present known only in translation. The name California does not appear in Palencia's diary, but in the Italian version of Preciado's printed in the works of Giovanni Ramosial between 1550 and 1556, it occurs three times. One of these entries reads, We found ourselves 54 leagues distant from California. Much the same statement appears in Palencia, but the place is called Santa Cruz, thus identifying California with a place where Jimenez and Cortez had landed. It has been argued that Ramosial, whose translation appeared after the name had been definitely applied, might have taken liberties with Preciado's original, just as Richard Hacklut later took liberties with the account in Ramosial. This is of course a possibility, but it cannot be asserted with confidence any more than the probability of its being an accurate rendering can be. In 1542 the name definitely appears in the Spanish journal of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the first European navigator to reach the coast of Alta California. It is mentioned casually as of a name already well known. There is no direct evidence associating the name California with Ordonez's romance, but the circumstantial evidence is so strong that the connection has been generally accepted since Edward Everett Hale first advanced the idea. Granted that the story in the sergus accounted for the name, the further question arises, who applied it and when? In the opinion of the writer the name was applied by Jimenez on the occasion of his discovery of the peninsula in 1533-1534. The failure of Cortez to use the name, owing to his attitude toward the murderer of his kinsmen, has already been explained. This would also make clear why those in his immediate service would avoid the name for fear of the displeasure of the old conquistador, and especially does it account for the probable differences on this point in the Palencia and Preciado diaries. Precia was the personal representative of Cortez on Ulloa's voyage, an official diarist addressing his journal to Cortez. He would therefore be more likely to employ Santa Cruz than the prescribed word California. Preciado's position on the Ulloa voyage is not clear, but it would seem that he was not in the same official category as Palencia. Furthermore, he left the ship before the end of the voyage. The inference is a natural one that he would have been more free than Palencia to use the name current among the men. Preciado's diary identifies California with the bay and port of La Paz. There are many indications that the name was applied originally to many islands which were called collectively the California's. Thus Richard Hackloot, though of course many years after the discovery, in commenting on certain portions of the story of Marcos de Niza, speaks of a great island and thirty small islands which seemed to be the new islands of California, rich in pearls, and again of great pearls and much gold in the isles of California, which are thirty-four in number. It would seem therefore that the term California's, which for centuries was much more current than the use of the word in the singular, was intended for the numerous and actually existing pearl islands of the Gulf, one of which might contain the long sought Amazons, though nobody had seen them. In later years the word was retained as a normal plural for the eventual two California's, Alta and Baja. There is one other theory concerning the application of the name which is advanced by such high authority and yet is so contrary to the spirit of Spanish nomenclature that it cannot be passed over in silence. Bancroft in Miss Putnam suggests that the name might have been applied in derision because it was so unlike the California's of romance. Bancroft suggests that this might have been given in fifteen thirty-six by the colonists who were abandoning the peninsula while Miss Putnam postpones the naming until the voyage of Alarcon in fifteen forty. Miss Putnam points out that Alarcon was disposed to belittle the achievements of Cortez because Alarcon was then in the service of Cortez's rival, the Viceroy. According to Miss Putnam, Alarcon, or one of his followers, might have said, there is the wonderful island the Marquis sought, there is the romance of California, and the name-stock. It seems so real to Miss Putnam that she can almost hear the sneer at the end of the Ea, despite the fact that Alarcon sailed up the gulf and back again on the mainland coast and not along Baja California, wherefore he at no time came within sight of those parts of the peninsula reached by Cortez. In any event, the application of the name California, because the land seemed so unlike the California of the Sergus, was both inconsistent with Spanish usage and with the facts as they believed them to be. If the point of view taken in this chapter is correct, the name was applied before the Spaniards had any clear knowledge of the country and thus represented their beliefs and hopes rather than disappointment. Indeed, it was not for many years after the voyages of Ulloa and Alarcon that the desolate character of the peninsula became known. In the second place, it is certain not only that the Spaniards had high hopes about the wealth of California's, hopes which seemed confirmed when the pearls were found there, but also that they were not disappointed. As Mrs. Sanchez has said, they were not looking for green trees in babbling brooks, but for the yellow gold, and none knew better than they that the precious metal was more often found in such bare desolate lands than in any other. As of documents, the writer himself has seen hundreds attest the truth of this statement as concerns Spanish ideas about the wealth of the California's even of the peninsula. This view was held continuously by the Spaniards down to the close of the 18th century, and even when they did not find riches they always expected to come upon them a little farther on. Finally, the Spaniards never seemed to have employed the style of the Spaniards' mockery suggested in giving place names. Instead, the practice of characterizing a place by a name which implies the very opposite is of a piece with a certain kind of latter-day American humor and totally foreign to Spanish habits. On the contrary, the Spaniards very frequently expressed their real views in their names with complete directness, for example in such terms as the handsome hills, caped a seat, valley of hunger, and valley of get out if you can. Indeed, says Mrs. Sanchez, referring to the conjecture that the name was applied in derision, quote, not a single fact or argument has yet been advanced in support of such a humiliating theory, and there is little doubt that our noble state received its charming name not in mockery, but rather in hopeful anticipation, almost in the spirit of prophecy of the riches and wonders to be found there, unquote. And indeed, California in one part of its vast extension was eventually to prove itself both literally and metaphorically as the land of gold. Footnote two. The following works, in addition to the general histories, were used in the preparation of this chapter. One, Chapman Charles Edward knew light on the origin of the name California, Los Angeles, March 1916 in Grizzly Bear magazine. Two, Davidson George, the origin and meaning of the name California, San Francisco 1910 in geographical society the Pacific transactions and proceedings. Three, Putnam Ruth with collaboration of Herbert Ingram Priestley, California the name Berkeley, California 1917 in University of California Publications in History. Four, Sanchez Nelly van de Grift the name of our beloved California was it given in derision? Los Angeles April 1916 in Grizzly Bear magazine. Five, Sanchez Nelly van de Grift Spanish and Indian place names of California San Francisco 1914. End of footnote. End of chapter six. Chapter seven. A history of California the Spanish period. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter seven. The northern mystery and the discovery of Alta California. A little farther north there was the location of those things which, according to present day conceptions were so mysterious and wonderful, though to the Spaniards the mystery was mainly in that their exact location continued to escape them. Still the searches in the north that were most productive of romancing were the view to the discovery of something not at all marvelous in itself and which in fact existed, though to be sure in a less agreeable form than was to be desired. A waterway around or through the continent of North America. Some indication has already been given about the origin of the theory of the straight and of the attempts to find it at Panama and then ever and ever more to northward. As early as 1541 Francisco Vasquez the Coronado had carried the straight at least as far north as Kansas and in 1543 Bartolome Ferrello sailed along the Pacific coast to about the present northern boundary of California while swarms of European navigators from many countries ranged up and down the Atlantic coast. But it must be remembered that there were scores of others who said that they had been yet farther even to the straight itself for almost that far and there was hardly a man but new or had heard of somebody who had been through the straight. The Indians too from a spirit of childlike exaggeration or because the white men did not clearly understand them or indeed because their own information was rather vague repeatedly confirmed conjectures as to its existence. Inevitably the straight was surrounded with a glamour which introduced wealthy kingdoms and rich cities along its banks all the wonderful things that men had expected to find elsewhere. Thus it was that fiction became fact in its influence upon actual explorations. But for this influence says Bancroft it may almost be doubted that Spanish occupation at the end of the 17th or even the 18th century would have extended above Colima on the Pacific and Penteco on the Atlantic side. Since men did not clearly know what was real and what was not they went farther and farther afield to penetrate the northern mystery and in particular to discover the secret of the straight. The search for the straight on the Atlantic side from Darien to Hudson Bay does not need to be told here. Eventually it narrowed down to seeking of the northwest passage. The names of Hudson, Baffin, Davis, and James have been perpetuated on the map as a result of their search for the elusive straight. Meanwhile a ceaseless campaign of discovery was being undertaken from the Pacific side but here the seekers were almost all of them in the Spanish service and the waterway became note as the straight of Anyan. It is to be borne in mind too that the idea of the existence of a practicable way of communication between the two oceans was not given up until the last decade of the 18th century after 300 years of effort. Over a century later a boat did sail by way of the northwest passage or a straight of Anyan around North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Old Amundsen was a skipper and his little craft, the guilloa, now rests high and dry on the cliff-out speech by San Francisco with its prowl looking out to sea. The governing authorities of Spain would have preferred to believe that there was no straight since its existence would be to that country's disadvantage, furnishing a route to rival nations or to free-booters once they might attack the rich kingdoms of New Spain. But if there were such a straight, Spain wished to be the first to find it so as to fortify it and prohibit its use by others. For three centuries the fear of foreign attack by way of the straight or by way of some unknown great river connected possibly with the Great Lakes was one of the leading factors in inducing Spain to make preventative conquests in the north and especially this was true as affecting the Spanish advance toward and into the California's. The story of the search for the straight of Anyan is one of the most fascinating tales in the annals of the New World. One way to trace it is through the medium of cartography, which is one of the most enlightening sources for an understanding of European notions in general about the Americas. Some idea has already been given of the progress of geographical thought of the early theories based on the belief that North America was Asia and that the straight was in the vicinity of Panama, followed by the conjecture that North America was a southeastward projection from Asia but with a continuance of belief in the possibility of the straight. As time went on, the idea of the straight returned with new intensity. This was in part due to actual discoveries, such as those of the great inlets of the Atlantic coast, in part to the faults or exaggerated stories that were told and in part to a survival of old ideas. An example of the last named influence was the persistence of the legend of Atlantis, the island continent which the ancients said had disappeared beneath the sea. With a gradual elimination of the North America as Asia idea, men wondered whether they might not have found a long lost continent and if that were the case there had to be a straight or passage around it since Atlantis was an island. All of these changes in belief found record in the maps. For example, the earliest known map of America, that made by Juan de la Cosa in 1500, indicated the possibility of a straight in Central America, though with due regard to the reputed position of what we now call the Strait of Malacca, he placed it below the equator. Ruch's map of 1508 had South America as the new world, widely separated by sea though indicated as uncertain from the West Indies and Asia, which was in the position that North America actually occupies. Scherner, in 1520, had a small North America called Cuba, a straight in Central America, and a channel separating it on the West from the nearby island of Japan. In 1530 addition of the works of Ptolemy, a Greek geographer of the second century, North America was larger, was included as part of the new world, and had no straight, but did not extend far to the North, leaving a passage around it. Japan and Asia were only a few miles to the West. Arantius Fine, in 1531, reverted to the original idea that North America was Asia, and South America a South Eastward extension from it, with no straight except a one discovered by Magellan. The Minster map of 1545 is similar to the above-name map of 1530, but North America extended farther North, and was separated by a straight from Asia and a gigantic Iceland of about the same size as North America, and these two in turn were separated from each other by a straight. The first map, showing North America approximately as it is, was issued by Remusio in 1556. About the only strange feature was the appearance of the vertical Quivira in Alta California. Blanks were left for the regions beyond which actual discoveries had been made. Homem, in 1558, had a narrow North America running from Southwest to Northeast, paralleling the line of the Atlantic Coast. Homem had a number of straights, the most prominent of which was by way of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The great Ortelius, in 1574, issued a map which, like that of Remusio, was substantially correct, showing the straight past the kingdom of Anion at about the point where bearing straight, in fact, enters the Arctic Ocean. Wild geography was by no means dead, however. For example, Locke's map of 1582 showed an open sea above North America, which extended to about 45 degrees in the extreme northwest, and to about 63 degrees in the northeast, at which point the straight appeared. Incidentally, the kingdom of Quivira again found lodging in Alta California. Even to the close of the 18th century there was a strange mixture of the real with the fabulous. De La Isle's map of 1752 was substantially accurate as far north as Cape Mendocino, but just above that there was a great inland reaching western sea, and beyond that, at about 50 degrees, a straight went through to Hudson Bay. In 1778 the American traveler, Jonathan Carver, indicated a river which had its sources near those of the Missouri and emptied into the Pacific, and as late as 1782 there was the San Vieira map showing an enormous sea of the west, with communication by rivers with the waterways of the east. Incidentally, these maps showed where mermaids were to be found and Amazon islands and other strange things. Footnote 1. For a proper understanding of this subject one needs to study the maps. See, Bancroft, Hubert Howe, History of the Northwest San Francisco, 1886. Of still greater importance for the investigator is the Ruth Putnam collection of maps in the Bancroft Library of the University of California. In footnote. The records are also teeming with memorials about the straight. There is one account by Menendez de Aviles, the Spanish Conqueror of Florida. According to Menendez he met a man in 1554 who said he went through the straight from the Atlantic to the Pacific on a French vessel. The vessel was wrecked on the return voyage and the narrator of the story alone escaped. A certain Fernandez de Ladrillero made a sworn statement that he had been on a voyage many years before that got near the straight on the northwest coast, but storms and damage to the ships had forced return. He also knew an Englishman who had entered the straight while fishing for cod. Undoubtedly Fernandez told the truth as he saw it. It would seem that he was on the Ulloa voyage and that the Englishman had entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Drake, who was in Alta California in 1579, was believed by many Spaniards to have returned to England through the straight and their view was confirmed several years later by a foreign pilot named Morena who told his story to a governor of New Mexico. Morena said that Drake had put him ashore in the vicinity of the straight while he was sick. Recovering his help he had then wandered about for four years and, at length, came to an arm of the sea dividing New Mexico from a great western land. This body of water extended northward, he believed, to the straight, and its banks had many large settlements, including a nation of white people. This sounded similar to the great western river of which Espejo had heard during his expedition of 1581 to 1583, for that, too, was rumored to have rich towns on its banks. But Espejo's river was real, the Colorado, and the rich towns were the Pueblos of the Mokis, which to Espejo's Indian informants seemed remarkably wealthy. When John Smith was captured by the Indians in 1607, on the occasion when Pocahontas intervened to save him, he was exploring the Chikahami River for a passage to the Pacific. Father Marquette heard in 1673 that from .5 or 6 days up the Missouri there was a stream which went to the Gulf of California, and he hoped to make the discovery. One of the most remarkable stories was that of Diego de Peñalosa, an ex-governor of New Mexico. He said that in 1662 he made an expedition far to the northeast of Santa Fe, and came to the city of Quivira. After marching for two leagues through part of Quivira, Peñalosa sent out an exploring party which was unable to get to the end of the city. The natives said that there were other provinces further on, which were so rich that even their ordinary dishes were made of gold and silver. Moreover, this land was along the sea where ships might reach it easily. Three voyages stand out from the rest, as the most important among those that were never made. The so-called fictitious or apocryphal voyages of Acapulca, Maldonado, and Fonte. In 1596, Fuca told the Englishman Locke that he had been in command of a Spanish voyage of 1592 up the Pacific coast in search of the Strait. He had found the Strait beyond 47 degrees and sailed through it, after which he returned to Acapulco. The Maldonado voyage was supposed to have been made in 1588, but the story was first told in 1609. According to Maldonado he had entered the Strait off the coast of Labrador, coming out in the polar sea and then passing through another Strait in 60 degrees into the Pacific Ocean. Fonte, as supposed to have made his voyage in 1640, the both Fonte and the story were invented in 1708. Fonte made his voyage from the Pacific side and entered a river at 53 degrees. Eventually he met a Boston ship coming from Malta, and this proved the existence of the Strait. These reputed voyages are entirely discredited now, but they had a tremendous influence on explorations. The Spaniards, under whose auspices they were supposed to have been made, never believed in these voyages for their records contained nothing about them, but the French and the English did credit them down to the close of the 18th century. They thought the Spaniards had discovered the Strait and wished themselves to share in its advantages. It is often said that the Spaniards lost interest in the Northern Mystery, but there is a continuous documentary record, at least as late as 1776, showing that they gave attention to the Strait, or River of the West, and persisted in their search in fear that the English or French had already discovered such a passage, or that they might be on the point of doing so. Indeed, one of the primary objects of an official Spanish voyage of 1791 was to settle, once and for all, the question of the Strait. Incidentally, the fame of at least one fictitious voyager, Juan de Fuca, has been recognized by posterity in the application of his name to the Strait that enters Puget Sound, and also to a cigar. It is probable that the mountain peaks of Alta, California may have been seen by some of the early Spanish expeditions to the Colorado, which thus may have a certain claim for the discovery of the land. Ulloa went to the head of the Gulf of California in 1539. In 1540, Hernando de Alarcon duplicated this achievement and ascended the Colorado for a number of miles in small boats. In the same year, Mil Cordillas, in command of a branch of the Vasquez de Coronado expedition, marched overland to the Colorado, with a view to cooperating with Alarcon. Both of these men, it would seem, did not get as far north as the Gila, wherefore it is likely that they did not actually reach Alta, California soil. The direct cause of the first expedition which is known to have set foot in Alta, California, was the search for the Strait of Añón. Beyond Ulloa's farthest north, there remained an untried course, which the Viceroy Mendoza resolved to exploit, in the hope that he would find the much desired strait, and thus provide an all Spanish direct route from Spain to the East Indies. In command was a certain Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese by birth, in a skilled mariner. The chief pilot, and eventual leader of the expedition, after the commander's death, was Bartolome Ferraro, described as a native of the Levant. On June 27, 1542, Rodriguez, or as he has always, though improperly been called, Cabrillo, set sail from Navidad on the west coast of New Spain, on a stone and another ship under his command. The vessels were smaller than any of our coasting schooners, wrote George Davidson. They were poorly built and very badly outfitted. Their anchors and ironwork were carried by men from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific. They were manned by conscripts and natives, were badly provisioned, and had the crews subject to that deadly scourge at the sea scurvy. Arrived at the mouth of the Gulf of California, that body of water was found to be in its all-too-customary state, and it took four days to cross over. Thereafter, Rodriguez proceeded leisurely up the western coast of the peninsula, stopping frequently. While at San Quentin, a little above the 30th parallel, he was informed by the Indians that there were white men farther east. On four other occasions at San Diego, Catalina Island, San Pedro, and Ventura, the Indians told the same story. It is probable that the word had been passed on from tribe to tribe of the Vasquez de Coronado Expedition or its offshoots toward the Colorado. At last, on Thursday, September 28, 1542, after three months of voyaging, Rodriguez and his men discovered a port closed and very good which they named San Miguel. They were, in fact, at San Diego, and had achieved for themselves the glory of discovering Alta California, all unwittingly, for to them it was the same land as before. That same day they entered the port and went ashore. The Indians were greatly terrified and in the night fired arrows at some of the Spaniards who were fishing, wounding three of them. It appears that their fear was inspired by accounts they had received at the Spaniards in the east who had been reported as killing many natives. But here, as elsewhere, Rodriguez made gifts to the Indians and gave them no occasion for terror or resentment. After a stay of six days at San Diego, the fleet put out to sea again and took four days to reach Catalina Island where Rodriguez arrived on October 7. Next day he stopped at San Pedro, proceeding on the following day to Santa Monica. On the 10th the fleet reached Ventura where the Indians came out to meet them in large canoes, each of which held 12 or 13 men. For the fifth time the Spaniards were told of men like themselves to the east and heard also that there was a great river which may have kindled hopes respecting the chief object of their voyage. Friday the 13th had no terrors for them for on that day they resumed the voyage going up to Santa Barbara Channel and anchoring on successive days at Rencón, Carpentería for a five miles west of Point Galita, Refugio, ten miles farther on, Gaviota Pass and Point Conception which they reached on October 18, this being the farthest north that any landing was made. Here they encountered a strong northwest wind. They stood out to sea to southward and soon made port at Cuellars Harbor at the island of San Miguel. Rodriguez remained here for a week in the course of which he had a fall breaking his arm near the shoulder. Nevertheless he gave orders to continue the voyage. For a month now, from October 25th to November 23rd, the expedition encountered storms. Rodriguez and his men seemed to have rounded Point Conception and at one time tried, quote, to approach the mainland in search of a large river which they had heard was on the other side of Cape Galara or Point Conception and because on the land there were signs of rivers but they found none. Neither did the anchor here because the coast was very bold, unquote. Forced back by the storm they returned to the Gaviota Pass anchorage for a stay of five days. Now again on November 6th they took several days to reach and get around the Point but were then driven to sea by a storm and did not make land again for eight days. So great was the swell of the ocean that it was terrifying to see, says the chronicler of the voyage who was on the flagship, adding later that those on the other ship had experienced greater labor and risk than those of the captain's ship since it was a small vessel and had no deck. For four days the two ships lost sight of each other. On the 14th those on the flagship sighted land at Northwest Cape in 38°31 minutes near Fort Ross, having passed without seeing them such important parts of the coast as the Bay of Monterey, the Golden Gate and the Bay of San Francisco and Drakes Bay. The storm which had driven them north shifted to another quarter and compelled them to run south. On the 16th they discovered Drakes Bay but were unable to go ashore though they remained in that vicinity until November 18th. It was on the last named day that they came nearest to discovering the Bay of San Francisco which they seemed to have passed. The entry in the journal for that day is as follows. The following Saturday they ran along the coast and at night found themselves off Cape San Martín or Pino's. All the coast run this day is very bold. The sea had a heavy swell and the coast is very high. There are mountains which reach the sky and the sea beats upon them. When sailing along near the land it seems as if the mountains would fall upon the ships. They are covered with snow to the summit named them the Sierras Navalas, snowy mountains. At the beginning of them a cape is formed which projects into the sea and which they name Cape Nieve, Cape Snow. End quote. The two places named were regarded by Davidson as the Santa Cruz mountains and Black Mountain but since few riders have been able to agree as to the precise route of the voyage one wonders if the storm-tossed navigators might actually have seen the Golden Gate mistaking one headland at its entrance for a point running into the sea. At any rate the vessels seemed to have followed the coast this day and not to have been troubled by fog. Several days later on November 23rd they entered Cuyers Harbor again glad no doubt of the opportunity that port afforded them for a respite from their experiences. They had found no shelter at all in their voyage beyond point conception, the journalist records, for the coast was bold and rugged and they had met with strong winds and a heavy sea. The weather was now so continuously bad that a stay of nearly three months was made on the islands of the Santa Barbara Channel mostly at San Miguel. On January 3rd, 1543 while they were still at this island Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo died as a direct result to the broken arm he had suffered there several months before. Undoubtedly the exposure to which he had been subjected in the difficult voyage of November had been more than he could stand. Courageous to the end he charged his men with his dying words to carry on the voyage and explore as much as possible of that coast. In every way it would seem this man the earliest of Alta California's heroes is worthy of the respect of posterity. Martin Fernandez Navarret, a distinguished Spanish historian has this to say of Rodriguez's achievement. Those who know the coast which Rodriguez Cabrillo discovered and explored the kind of vessels in which he undertook the expedition, the rigorous season during which he pursued his voyage in those intemperate climbs the science of navigation at that period cannot help admiring a courage and intrepidity which though common among seafaring Spaniards at that time cannot be appreciated in our day when the navigator is fairly dazzled by the assistance furnished him through the wonderful progress of the arts and sciences rendering his operations easier and supplying him with advantages which as they were lacking to the early discoverers make their courage and perseverance as portentous as their discoveries." If it was difficult in Fernandez's day to appreciate the problems that confronted the navigators of Rodriguez's time how much more lacking in the conception of the dangers they had to face must people of this day be for the Fernandez account was published in 1802 when nautical science was much less advanced than it has since become. In honor of their dead commander his companions changed the name of the island where he died from possession which they had called it before to the island of Juan Rodriguez neither the name nor the full mead of that pilot's glory has however been preserved to him. Bartolome Ferrello now took command and on February 18 from preliminary cruisings of little moment resumed the voyage. Going out to sea before rounding point conception he did not approach the coast until he had reached northwest Cape at Rodriguez's farthest north. Proceeding under great difficulties with but little opportunity to view the coast Ferrello is believed to have passed beyond what is now the northern boundary of California to about opposite the Rogue River in Oregon in latitude 42 degrees 30 minute. The account of the voyage that day March 1, 1543 makes it perfectly clear why Ferrello then turned back. Quote They ran this night, February 28 to the west northwest with great difficulty and on Thursday, March 1 in the morning the wind shifted to the southwest with great fury the seas coming from many directions causing them great fatigue and breaking over the ships and as they had no decks if God had not suckered them they could not have escaped. Not being able to lay to they were forced to scud northeast toward the land and now, thinking themselves lost they commended themselves to our Lady of Guadalupe and made their vows. Thus they ran until three o'clock in the afternoon with great fear and trevail because they concluded that they were about to be lost for they saw many signs that the land was nearby both birds and very green trees which came from some rivers although because the weather was very dark and cloudy the land was invisible. At this hour the mother of God suckered them by the grace of her son for a very heavy rainstorm their sails lowered all night and until sunset the next day and as there was a high sea from the south it broke every time over the prow and swept over them as over a rock. The winds shifted to the northwest and to the north northwest with a great fury forcing them to scud to the southeast and the east southeast until Saturday the third of March with a sea so high that they became crazed and his blessed mother had not miraculously saved them they could not have escaped with respect to food they also suffered hardship because they had nothing but damaged biscuit end quote yet the diarist records that they believed there was a very large river in the vicinity of their farthest north they did not wholly forget their quest for the passage through the continent though the storm did not permit them to stop for a search meanwhile their troubles were not over on March 4 the flagship lost sight of the consort and when days mounted into weeks without news of her she was believed to have been lost arrived at the island of Juan Rodriguez on March 5 Ferello was unable to enter the port so terrible was the storm but soon found shelter behind Santa Cruz Island going southward now Ferello stopped at Ventura Catalina Island and San Diego in Alta California making futile inquiries for the lost ship he does not seem to have been so careful to please the Indians as Rodriguez had been for there is no further mention of the giving of presence and at Ventura Ferello secured four Indians and at San Diego secured two boys to take to New Spain as interpreters on March 17 he left San Diego and went successively to the Bay of Todos Santos San Quintín and Cedros Island in Baja California on March 26 while they were at that island the consort came out of the sea to the great rejoicing of all it had been missing for three weeks as told in the journal they thought they would be lost but the interpreters promised our lady to make a pilgrimage to her church naked and she saved them supplies were now too low to permit their resuming the exploration so they returned to the port of origin Navidad arriving there on April 14, 1543 how many returned of those who had in the first place set out from there the journal did not say the Rodriguez Ferello expedition had not discovered the strait nor any wealthy kingdom of Caviera wherefore in some senses it had been a failure it had however made known some 800 miles more of coast and its trend north westward toward Asia the strait had therefore been very appreciably pushed to the north and farther away from New Spain this might well have been considered a satisfactory achievement by the viceroy Mendoza to Californians however it is enough that Rodriguez and Ferello had given them a noble tradition a discovery of Alta California under conditions requiring a courage and tenacity that seemed to have been almost superhuman footnote the principal item used together with the general histories in the preparation of this chapter was the following Spanish exploration in the south west 1542 to 1706 translated and edited by Herbert Eugene Bolton New York 1916 in original narratives of early American history series in footnote end of chapter 7