ELDORADO 203 



James), having on them plentifull and great store of 

 seals and birds, with one of which we fell July 24, 

 whereon we found such provisions as might compet- 

 ently serve our turne for a while." For much that 

 refers to the visit of Sir Francis Drake to the north- 

 west coast of California in 1579 and that tends to 

 establish the disputed claim that San Francisco Bay, 

 and not Bodega Bay or Point Re3'es as some claim, 

 was the one he entered and in which he remained from 

 the 17th day of June until the 23rd of July, I am in- 

 debted to my pioneer friend, the late Dr. J. D. B. Still- 

 man, in his "Foot-prints in California of early navi- 

 gators." 



The "coney" or ground squirrel, referred to in 

 Drake's narrative, is not seen in the vicinity of Point 

 Reyes nor in Marin county, but is found in large num- 

 bers in the warm level lands of Alameda county on the 

 east side of the Bay of San Francisco. 



Sir Francis Drake returned to England b}- way of 

 the Philippine Islands and the Cape of Good Hope, 

 thus making a complete circuit of the globe. He wa: 

 the first navigator that ever accomplished such a feat, 

 returning home in the same vessel in which he com- 

 menced his voyage. 



Two hundred years after Sir Francis Drake amazed 

 the natives of "New Allion" with the sight of the first 

 white men (whom they worshiped as gods), a group 

 of white men again was seen overlooking our inland 

 sea. This time it was Portala, with Franciscan monks, 

 the farthest ripple of that expiring wave of Spanish 

 conquest, that for centuries had been rolling along 



