412 THE CORONADO EXPEDITION, 1510-1542 [eth.ann.14 



Pedro bay, Ferrel again found Indians who told hirn by signs that 

 "they had passed people like the Spaniards in the interior." Two 

 days later, on Saturday morning, "three large Indians came to the 

 ship, who told by signs that men like us were traveling in the interior, 

 wearing beards, and armed and clothed like the people on the ships, 

 and carrying cross-bows and swords. Tliey made gestures with the 

 right arm as if they were throwing lances, and went running in a pos- 

 ture as if riding on horseback. They showed that many of the native 

 Indians had been killed, and that this was the reason they were afraid." 

 A week later, October 7, the ships anchored off the islands of Santa 

 Cruz and Anacapa. The Indians of the islands and also of the main- 

 land opposite, near Santa Barbara or the Santa Clara valley, gave the 

 Spaniards additional descriptions of men like themselves in the interior. 

 The rest of the year 1542 was spent in this locality, off the coast of 

 southern California, and then the voyage northward was resumed. 

 Many points on the land were touched, although San Francisco bay 

 quite escaped observation. Just before a severe storm, in which one 

 of the vessels was lost, forcing him to turn back, Ferrel observed floating 

 drift and recognized that it meant the neighborhood of a large river, but 

 he was driven out to sea before reaching the mouth of the Columbia. 

 The return voyage was uneventful, and the surviving vessel reached 

 the harbor of Natividad in safety by April 14, 1543. 



VILLALOBOS SAILS ACROSS THE PACIFIC 



Cortes and Alvarado had both conceived plans more than once to 

 equip a great expedition in New Spain and cross the South sea to the 

 isles of the Western ocean. After the death of Alvarado, Mendoza 

 adopted this scheme, and commissioned Buy Lopez de Villalobos to 

 take command of some of the ships of Alvarado and sail westward. He 

 started on All Saints day, the 1st of November, 1542, with 370 Spanish 

 soldiers and sailors aboard his fleet. January 22, 1547, Friar Jeronimo 

 de Santistebau wrote to Mendoza "from Cochin in the Indies of the 

 King of Portugal." He stated that 117 of the men were still with the 

 fleet, and that these intended to keep together and make their way as 

 best they could home to Spain. Thirty members of the expedition had 

 remained at Maluco, and twelve had been captured by the natives of 

 various islands at which the party had landed. The rest, including 

 Buy Lopez, had succumbed to hunger and thirst, interminable labors 

 and suffering, and unrelieved discouragement — the record of the pre- 

 vious mouths. This letter of Friar Jeronimo is the only published 

 account of the fate of this expedition. 



The brief and gloomy record of the voyage of Villalobos is a fit end- 

 ing for this story of the Coronado expedition to Cibola and Quivira, of 

 how it came about, of what it accomplished, aud of what resulted from 

 it. Nothing is the epitome of the whole story. The lessons which it 

 teaches are always warnings, but if one will read history rightly, every 

 warning will be found to be an inspiration. 



