102 
skins, and also cochineal, at least when 
they think fit to attend to this branch 
ofcommerce. |The seas of Peru, espe- 
cially about the Gallapagos, abound in 
whales, and are accordingly much fre- 
quented by the English and American 
whalers. ‘The latter, more than the 
English, employ themselves on several 
parts of the coast and the neighbour- 
ing isles, in the chace of Phoee of 
various kinds, known by the names of 
sea lions, elephants, and wolves, The 
chace of these animals has been.so ac- 
tive for the last thirty years in particu- 
lar, that their numbers are considera- 
bly reduced, except in places that have 
been lately discovered. The discovery 
of a rock sometimes makes the fortune 
of the discoverer. ‘The apparatus re- 
quired for their chace is of little in- 
trinsic value, and every body on- 
board has ashare in the profits. There 
is on-board these vessels a spirit of 
order and economy, and, at the same 
time, a-degree of activity, on which M, 
de Roquefeuil bestows great praise. 
Our readers will perhaps enquire, 
what cause may bring to the equato- 
rial seas these large amphibious ani- 
mals, which, in our hemisphere, appear 
to prefer the cold waters of the polar 
seas. It might, perhaps, be sufficient 
to observe, that the temperature of the 
ocean, and especially of so vast an 
ocean as that which washes the west- 
ern coast of America, is not sensibly 
affected by the action of the solar 
heat ; but, besides this, there is a strong 
current, which carries the waters of the 
olar seas along the coasts of Chili and 
eru, towards the Gallapagos islands, 
where it is at length lost in the general 
current of the equatorial seas from 
east to west. M. de Roquefeuil, go- 
verned by the commercial object of 
his voyage, was not able to examine the 
Gallapagos islands, of the importance 
of which he doubtless is fully sensible. 
It was necessary to proceed without 
delay to the coast of California. 
It is generally believed, that the 
west and north-west winds that pre- 
vail on the coast of Mexico during 
our summer, which in those seas bears, 
though improperly, the name of win- 
ter, are not perceived at a greater dis- 
tance from the coast than 70, 100, 
or, at the most, 150, leagues; but M. 
Roquefeuil met with them above 200 
leagues from the coast of Guatimala. 
Impeded by these winds, and by éur- 
rents setting to the south, it was not till 
the 4th of August that he deseried the 
A new Voyage round the World, by M. de Roquefeuil. (Sept. 1, 
coast of California, and anchored int 
the bay of Yerva-Buena, which de- 
pends on the fine port of San Frae- 
cisco, of which, according 1o our au- 
thor, Vancouver has given a more 
correct plan than that of La Peyrouse. 
He learnt from the governor of this~ 
Spanish presidio, that, having ascended 
filty leagues from its mouth, the river 
San Sacramento, which comes from the 
north-east, and falls into this port, as 
well as that of San Joaquin, which 
comes from the south-east, he had 
found every-where about seven or 
eight fathoms of water. The former 
of these rivers always overflows in the 
rainy season, and forms vast marshes, 
which are inhabited by natives who 
are Ichthyophagi. Several parts of 
the banks are very fertile; the vine 
grows spontancously, and the maize 
requires very little attention. Indus- 
try is still in its infancy in California ; 
the only tolerable articles of furniture 
seen at San Francisco are made by a 
Kodiack, who was taken prisoner in 
the fishing-expeditions which some 
subjects of Russia made to this port in’ 
1809, 10, and 11, with their baidaus, 
before the Spaniards had built some: 
boats to repulse them. The town-of 
the mission consists of a hundred 
miserable huts, These natives are in 
general indolent, and of very limited 
understanding: but the interior of 
California seems to contain tracts very 
well adapted for European colonies, 
and the situation of the coast makes 
the sovereignty of it coveted by more 
than one power. 
Before M. de R. arrived at San 
Francisco, which he reached on ‘the 
seventeenth of October, he passed at 
a small distance from a Russian esta- 
blishment, called in Spanish Bodega, 
situated in 38° 30’, at the mouth of a 
small river, called by’ the Russians 
Slavinska Ross. It is an usurpation 
of territory which Spain, or, in its 
place, Mexico, would be highly inter- 
ested in repelling. They will doubt- 
lessly embrace some favourable oppor- 
tunity, when England is at war with 
Russia, which is almost inevitable, if 
the Russians persist in excluding Eng- 
lish vessels from that part of the coast 
which is to the west of Queen Char- 
lotte’s islands. 
M. Roquefeuil made two pretty long 
visits to the port of San Francisco, 
where he collected the following infor- 
mation respecting California, = 
The Spaniards have four arenas 
a 
