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nia. This is supposed to be one of the group of islands now called the Revillagigedo Islands. He proceeded no farther north, and made no fresh discoveries; but shortly afterwards returned to New Spain. Becerra, the commander of the other ship of this expedition, was of a choleric, haughty disposition; and, having shown that offensively to his people, was murdered by a malcontent crew, led on by his pilot Ortun, or Fortuño Zimenes, a native of Biscay.

Zimenes afterwards continued the voyage of discovery, and appears to have sailed westward across the gulf, and to have touched the peninsula of California. This was in the year 1534. He therefore was the first discoverer of the country. "But," says Venegas," he could not fly from the hand of Omnipotence; for coming to that part which has since been called Santa Cruz Bay, and seems to be part of the inward coast of California, he went ashore, and was there killed by the Indians, with twenty other Spaniards." Upon this disaster, the remaining crew got frightened, and returned to New Spain. This Bay of Santa Cruz, so named by Cortez the following year, seems to be the same as that now called La Paz, lying on the western side of the Gulf of California, about a hundred miles north of Cape St. Lucas. Some writers, however, suppose it to have been situated much nearer the southern extremity of the peninsula.

Humboldt, in his "Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain," in stating these circumstances, mentions in a note, that he found in a manuscript preserved in the archives of the viceroyalty of Mexico, that California was discovered in 1526, though he knew not, he says, on what authority this assertion was founded. From an examination which he seems to have made of other manuscripts of the period, preserved in the Academy of History at Madrid, Humboldt seems satisfied that this alleged discovery of California in 1526 was unfounded, and that the country had not even been seen in the expedition of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, who was a near relation of Cortez, so late as 1532.

In 1535, Cortez himself coasted both sides of the Gulf of California, which was first called the Sea of Cortez, but was more generally known as the Mar Roxo, o Vermejo, (the Red, or Vermillion Sea), probably from its resembling the Red Sea

between Arabia and Egypt in shape, or from the discoloration of its waters at the northern extremity by the Rio Colorado, or Red River. Gomara, the Spanish historian, in 1557, likened it more judiciously to the Adriatic. In the English maps, it is generally marked as the Gulf of California. Francisco de Ulloa, at command and likewise at the personal expense of Cortez, prosecuted farther discoveries along the coast, and during the subsequent two years, succeeded in exploring the gulf nearly to the mouth of the Colorado. Neither Cortez, however, nor Ulloa seems to have discovered the coast of New or Upper California.

That honor was reserved to Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, one of the pilots of Cortez. Cabrillo was a Portuguese by birth, and a man of great courage and honor. On the 27th June, 1542, under instructions from the then viceroy of Spain, Antonio de Mendoza, he sailed from the port of Navidad in Mexico, on an expedition of discovery of the coast towards the north. He touched at various places on the voyage. The large cape between the fortieth and forty-first degrees of latitude he named Cape Mendoza, or Mendocino, in honor of the viceroy. Cabrillo reached 44° lat. N., where he found the cold (10th March) intense. This, the want of provisions, and the bad condition of his ships, compelled him to return to Navidad, the harbor of which place he re-entered on 14th April, 1543. This is according to the authority of Venegas. Other accounts say that Cabrillo, who had been long sick, and was overcome at last by the fatigues of the voyage, died at Port Possession, in the Island of San Bernardo, one of the Santa Barbara group, about the thirty-fourth parallel, upon the 3d January, 1543, leaving the subsequent guidance of the expedition farther northwards to Bartolomé Ferrelo, his pilot. Ferrelo is said to have named a promontory about the forty-first degree of latitude, Cabo de Fortunas (Cape of Perils, or Stormy Cape), from the rough weather and dangers encountered in its vicinity. This promontory is supposed to be the same, already noticed, which was called Cape Mendocino. There is therefore some discrepancy between the accounts of the voyage under the command of Cabrillo, or successively of him and his pilot Ferrelo. Neither of these navigators,

however, while they noticed and named various prominent points of the coast, seem to have discovered the entrance to the great Bay of San Francisco.

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SIR FRANCIS DRAKE-From an old English Painting.

In 1577, Sir Francis, then only Captain Drake, already distinguished as an experienced navigator, fitted out, with the pecuniary aid of some friends, a buccaneering expedition against the

Spaniards, which ultimately led him round the globe. In those days, and for a long time afterwards, the rich Spanish ships, which bore over so many seas the wealth of their new-found world, were the natural prey of the English buccaneers-or, to give them a more honorable title, since they generally sailed under formal license from the government, of the English privateers. Drake, Cavendish, Dampier, and many other famous early navigators, were all of that class. The wealth of the Philippines was generally conveyed by a single annual galleon from Manilla to Acapulco, on its way to Europe. To intercept this particular ship was one great aim of these privateers. Drake, in his expedition of 1577, after safely threading the Straits of Magellan, reached, at length, the Pacific, north of the equator, and appears, in 1579, to have sailed along the shores of California. All along the west coast of the Americas he had been capturing and plundering the newly settled Spanish towns, and such ships as came in his way. Wishing at length to return home, and afraid lest the Spaniards might be waiting to catch him off the Straits of Magellan, he tried to sail westward, and so reach England by the Cape of Good Hope. This was in the autumn of 1579. Contrary winds preventing that course, "he was obliged," to use the language of an old chronicler of the voyage, "to sail towards the north; in which course, having continued at least six hundred leagues, and being got into forty-three degrees north latitude, they found it intolerably cold; upon which they steered southwards, till they got into thirty-eight degrees north latitude, where they discovered a country, which, from its white cliffs they called NOVA ALBION, though it is now known by the name of California.

"They here discovered a bay, which entering with a favorable gale, they found several huts by the water side, well defended from the severity of the weather. Going on shore, they found a fire in the middle of each house, and the people lying round it upon rushes. The men go quite naked, but the women have a deer skin over their shoulders, and round their waist a covering of bulrushes after the manner of hemp.

"These people bringing the admiral (Drake) a present of feathers and cauls of network, he entertained them so kindly

and generously, that they were extremely pleased, and soon afterwards they sent him a present of feathers and bags of tobacco. A number of them coming to deliver it, gathered themselves together at the top of a small hill, from the highest point of which one of them harangued the admiral, whose tent was placed at the bottom. When the speech was ended, they laid down their arms and came down, offering their presents; at the same time returning what the admiral had given them. The women remaining on the hill, tearing their hair and making dreadful howlings, the admiral supposed them engaged in making sacrifices, and thereupon ordered divine service to be performed at his tent, at which these people attended with astonishment.

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"The arrival of the English in California being soon known through the country, two persons in the character of ambassadors came to the admiral, and informed him, in the best manner they

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