IN CALIFORNIA 5 



beautiful wild plant-life of the country. An account 

 of the expedition was published by one of the offi- 

 cers, Don Miguel Costanso, and the first impres- 

 sion made upon the storm-tossed, scurvy-racked 

 mariners by the lovely country, remained with him 

 when he wrote. It was May, when the ships ar- 

 rived in San Diego Bay, and all the land was "of 

 happy aspect." There was abundance of trees and 

 fragrant shrubs and captivating flowers ; he lumped 

 them in non-botanical way as rosemary, salvia, and 

 roses of Castile ; but above all was he pleased with 

 the riot of wild grapes that were at that season 

 blooming deliciously in the river bottoms. Cos- 

 tanso, however, was a civil engineer, and, his first 

 enthusiasm over the floral exuberance of the land 

 expended, he turned to more practical matters. 



In June arrived the arm of the expedition which 

 had made the journey from Lower California by 

 land, and with this party came Padre Crespi, who 

 also has left matter of record especially to our 

 purpose being a diary which he kept of a trip by 

 land that was made northward from San Diego to 

 San Francisco Bay, under the leadership of Don 

 Gaspar de Portola, who was to be first governor 

 of Upper California. This exploring party left 

 San Diego on July 15, 1769, and marched by easy 

 stages, hugging the coast pretty closely and reach- 



