We were buried alive in fathomless depths of fog. We were a fixture
until that fog lifted. It was an impenetrable barrier. Upon the point of
entering one of the most wonderful harbors in the world, the glory of
the newest of new lands, we found ourselves prisoners, and for a time at
least involved in the mazes of ancient history.
In 1535 Cortez coasted both sides of the Gulf of California--first
called the Sea of Cortez; or the Vermilion Sea, perhaps from its
resemblance to the Red Sea between Arabia and Egypt; or possibly from
the discoloration of its waters near the mouth of the Rio Colorado, or
Red River.
In 1577 Captain Drake, even then distinguished as a navigator, fitted
out a buccaneering expedition against the Spaniards; it was a wild-goose
chase and led him round the globe. In those days the wealth of the
Philippines was shipped annually in a galleon from Manila to Acapulco,
Mexico, on its way to Europe. Drake hoped to intercept one of these
richly laden galleons, and he therefore threaded the Straits of
Magellan, and, sailing northward, found himself, in 1579, within sight
of the coast of California. All along the Pacific shore from Patagonia
to California he was busily occupied in capturing and plundering Spanish
settlements and Spanish ships. Wishing to turn home with his treasure,
and fearing he might be waylaid by his enemies if he were again to
thread the Straits of Magellan, he thought to reach England by the Cape
of Good Hope. This was in the autumn of 1579. To quote the language of
an old chronicler of the voyage:
"He was obliged to sail toward the north; in which course having
continued six hundred leagues, and being got into forty-three degrees
north latitude, they found it intolerably cold; upon which they steered
southward 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 waterside, 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 around it upon rushes. The men go quite
naked, but the women have a deerskin over their shoulders, and round
their waist a covering of bulrushes after the manner of hemp.
"These people bringing the Admiral [Captain Drake] a present of feathers
and cauls of network, he entertained them so kindly and generously that
they were extremely pleased; and afterward 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
they were engaged in making sacrifices, and thereupon ordered divine
service to be performed at his tent, at which these people attended with
astonishment.
"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 were able, that the king would
visit him, if he might be assured of coming in safety. Being satisfied
on this point, a numerous company soon appeared, in front of which was a
very comely person bearing a kind of sceptre, on which hung two crowns,
and three chains of great length. The chains were of bones, and the
crowns of network, curiously wrought with feathers of many colors.
"Next to sceptre-bearer came the king, a handsome, majestic person,
surrounded by a number of tall men dressed in skins, who were followed
by the common people, who, to make the grander appearance, had painted
their faces of various colors; and all of them, even the children, being
loaded with presents.
"The men being drawn up in line of battle, the Admiral stood ready to
receive the king within the fences of his tent. The company halted at a
distance, and the sceptre-bearer made a speech half an hour long; at the
end of which he began singing and dancing, in which he was followed by
the king and all the people; who, continuing to sing and dance, came
quite up to the tent; when, sitting down, the king took off his crown of
feathers, placed it on the Admiral's head, and put on him the other
ensigns of royalty; and it is said he made him a solemn tender of his
whole kingdom; all which the Admiral accepted in the name of the Queen
his sovereign, in hope that these proceedings might, one time or other,
contribute to the advantage of England.
"The people, dispersing themselves among the Admiral's tents, professed
the utmost admiration and esteem for the English, whom they looked upon
as more than mortal; and accordingly prepared to offer sacrifices to
them, which the English rejected with abhorrence; directing them, by
various signs, that their religious worship was alone due to the supreme
Maker and Preserver of all things....
"The Admiral, at his departure, set up a pillar with a large plate on
it, on which were engraved her Majesty's name, picture, arms, and title
to the country; together with the Admiral's name and the time of his
arrival there."
Pinkerton says in his description of Drake's voyage: "The land is so
rich in gold and silver that upon the slightest turning it up with a
spade these rich materials plainly appear mixed with the mould." It is
not strange, if this were the case, that the natives--who, though
apparently gentle and well disposed, were barbarians--should naturally
have possessed the taste so characteristic of a barbarous people, and
have loved to decorate themselves even lavishly with ornaments rudely
fashioned in this rare metal. Yet they seemed to know little of its
value, and to care less for it than for fuss and feathers. Either they
were a singularly stupid race, simpler even than the child of ordinary
intelligence, or they scorned the allurements of a metal that so few are
able to resist.
Drake was not the first navigator to touch upon those shores. The
explorer Juan Cabrillo, in 1542-43, visited the coast of Upper
California. A number of landings were made at different points along the
coast and on the islands near Santa Barbara. Cabrillo died during the
expedition; but his successor, Ferralo, continued the voyage as far
north as latitude 42°. Probably Drake had no knowledge of the discovery
of California by the Spaniards six and thirty years before he dropped
anchor in the bay that now bears his name, and for many years he was
looked upon as the first discoverer of the Golden State. Even to this
day there are those who give him all the credit. Queen Elizabeth
knighted him for his services in this and his previous expeditions;
telling him, as his chronicler records, "that his actions did him more
honor than his title." Her Majesty seems not to have been much impressed
by his tales of the riches of the New World--if, indeed, they ever came
to the royal ear,--for she made no effort to develop the resources of
her territory. No adventurous argonauts set sail for the Pacific coast
in search of gold till two hundred and seventy years later.
There seems to have been a spell cast over the land and the sea. We are
sure that Sir Francis Drake did not enter the Bay of San Francisco, and
that he had no knowledge of its existence, though he was almost within
sight of it. In one of the records of his voyage we read of the chilly
air and of the dense fogs that prevailed in that region; of the "white
banks and cliffs which lie toward the sea"; and of islands which are
known as the Farallones, and which lie about thirty miles off the coast
and opposite the Golden Gate.
In 1587 Captain Thomas Cavendish, afterward knighted by Queen Elizabeth,
touched upon Cape St. Lucas, at the extremity of Lower California. He
was a privateer lying in wait for the galleon laden with the wealth of
the Philippines and bound for Acapulco. When she hove in sight there was
a chase, a hot engagement, and a capture by the English Admiral. "This
prize," says the historian of the voyage, "contained one hundred and
twenty-two thousand _pesos_ of gold, besides great quantities of rich
silks, satins, damasks, and musk, with a good stock of provisions." In
those romantic and adventurous days piracy was legalized by formal
license; the spoils were supposed to consist of gold and silver only, or
of light movable goods.
The next English filibuster to visit the California coast was Captain
Woodes Rogers--arriving in November, 1709. He described the natives of
the California peninsula as being "quite naked, and strangers to the
European manner of trafficking. They lived in huts made of boughs and
leaves, erected in the form of bowers; with a fire before the door,
round which they lay and slept. Some of the women wore pearls about
their necks, which they fastened with a string of silk grass, having
first notched them round." Captain Rogers imagined that the wearers of
the pearls did not know how to bore them, and it is more than likely
that they did not. Neither did they know the value of these pearls; for
"they were mixed with sticks, bits of shells, and berries, which they
thought so great an ornament that they would not accept glass beads of
various colors, which the English offered them."
The narrator says: "The men are straight and well built, having long
black hair, and are of a dark brown complexion. They live by hunting and
fishing. They use bows and arrows and are excellent marksmen. The women,
whose features are rather disagreeable, are employed in making
fishing-lines, or in gathering grain, which they grind upon a stone. The
people were willing to assist the English in filling water, and would
supply them with whatever they could get; they were a very honest
people, and would not take the least thing without permission."
Such were the aborigines of California. Captain Woodes Rogers did not
hesitate to take whatever he could lay his hands on. He captured the
"great Manila ship," as the chronicle records. "The prize was called
Nuestra Señora de la Incarnacion, commanded by Sir John Pichberty, a
gallant Frenchman. The prisoners said that the cargo in India amounted
to two millions of dollars. She carried one hundred and ninety-three
men, and mounted twenty guns."
The exact locality of Drake's Bay was for years a vexed question. So
able an authority as Alexander von Humboldt says: "The port of San
Francisco is frequently confounded by geographers with the Port of
Drake, farther north, under 38° 10' of latitude, called by the Spaniards
the Puerto de Bodega."
The truth is, Bodega Bay lies some miles north of Drake's Bay--or Jack's
Harbor, as the sailors call it; the latter, according to the log of the
Admiral, may be found in latitude 37° 59' 5"; longitude 122° 57-1/2'.
The cliffs about Drake's Bay resemble in height and color, those of
Great Britain in the English Channel at Brighton and Dover; therefore it
seems quite natural that Sir Francis should have called the land New
Albion. As for the origin of the name California, some etymologists
contend that it is derived from two Latin words: _calida fornax_; or, as
the Spanish put it, _caliente fornalla_,--a hot furnace. Certainly it is
hot enough in the interior, though the coast is ever cool. The name
seems to have been applied to Lower California between 1535 and 1539.
Mr. Edward Everett Hale rediscovered in 1862 an old printed romance in
which the name California was, before the year 1520, applied to a
fabulous island that lay near the Indus and likewise "very near the
Terrestrial Paradise." The colonists under Cortez were perhaps the first
to apply it to Lower California, which was long thought to be an island.
The name San Francisco was given to a port on the California coast for
the first time by Cermeñon, who ran ashore near Point Reyes, or in
Drake's Bay, when voyaging from the Philippines in 1595. At any rate,
the name was not given to the famous bay that now bears it before 1769,
and until that date it was unknown to the world. It is not true, as some
have conjectured, that the name San Francisco was given to any port in
memory of Sir Francis Drake. Spanish Catholics gave the name in honor of
St. Francis of Assisi. Drake was an Englishman and a freebooter, who had
no love for the saints.
That the Bay of San Francisco should have so long remained undiscovered
is the more remarkable inasmuch as many efforts were made to survey and
settle the coast. California was looked upon as the El Dorado of New
Spain. It was believed that it abounded in pearls, gold, silver, and
other metals; and even in diamonds and precious stones. Fruitless
expeditions, private or royal, set forth in 1615, 1633 and 1634; 1640,
1642 and 1648; 1665 and 1668. But nothing came of these. A hundred years
later the Spanish friars established their peaceful missions, and in
1776 the mission church of San Francisco was dedicated.
[Illustration: The Outer Signal Station at the Golden Gate]
* * * * *
At last the fog began to show signs of life and motion. Huge masses of
opaque mist, that had shut us in like walls of alabaster, were rent
asunder and noiselessly rolled away. The change was magical. In a few
moments we found ourselves under a cloudless sky, upon a sparkling sea,
flooded with sunshine, and the Golden Gate wide open to give us welcome.