MCGKEl HARDY S EXPLORATIONS 1826 85 



Naturally most of the scieutitic inquiries of tUe time were, like tliose 

 of Humboldt, based on tradition rather than on direct observation. 



Toward the end of the first third of the century an important con- 

 tribution to actual knowledge of Seriland and the Seri at last grew 

 out of the pearl industry. In May, 1825, Lieutenant E. W. H. Flardy, 

 R. N., was commissioned by the " General Pearl and Coral Fishery 

 Association of London " to investigate the pearl fisheries of the Cali- 

 fornian gulf; and his task was performed with promptness and energy. 

 On February 13, 1S2C>, he visited Pitic (under Hermosillo): 



Half a league short [south] of it is another small place, called the Pueblo de los 

 C^^res, inhabited by a squalid race of Indians who are said to indulge in constant 

 habits of iutemjierauce and to have lost the fire of the warrior. In its stead they 

 manifest the sullen stupidity peculiar to those who, feeling themselves unfitted for 

 companionship, strive to vent their pusillanimous rage upon objects the most helpless 

 and unoffending, such as women, children, and dugs, who appear to be the chief 

 victims of their revenge. ' 



His chief object in visiting Pitic was to obtain information concern- 

 ing Tiburou, its natives, and its pearl-oyster beds; and he was rewarded 

 with characteristic accounts of the ferocitj' of the tribesmen and their 

 use of poisoned arrows, wliich he received with some incredulity.- 



After examining tiie principal pearl fisheries of the western coast, 

 Lieutenant Hardy reached , the "Sal si Puedes" in the throat of the 

 gulf, and, on August 9, "got aslant of wind, which carried us up to 

 the northwest end of Tiburow island"" — i. e., apparently over the pre- 

 cise route sailed by I'adre Ugarte in 1721. Anchoring on the island, 

 he had the good fortune first to meet a native able to speak Spanish, 

 and later to successfully treat the sick wife of the principal chief, after 

 which he was treated with great consideration, and — unwittingly on 

 his part — adopted into the tribe as a member of the chief clan by the 

 ceremony of face painting, the symbol being that of the turtle totem, to 

 j udge from the superficial description. Taking slightly brackish water, 

 just as Ugarte had done one hundred and five years before, and arm- 

 ing his crew, lie spent the night near the rancheria (evidently in Baliia 

 Agua Dulce). Next morning he "traveled over the greater part of the 

 island" (!) in fruitless search for pearls and gold, and in the afternoon 

 " get under weigh, and stood into a bay of the continent to the northeast 

 of the island," discovering and naming " Sargent's Point", together with 

 "Cockle Harbour", and "Bruja's bay" in the lee of the point, and also 

 "Arnold's Island"; this island being apparently the present prominent 

 cuspof Puuta Sargent, now connected with the mainland by a continu- 

 ous wave-built bar rising a little way above reach of tide. Anchoring 

 in the bay named from his vessel {La Bruja), he examined the adjacent 

 shore, ascertaining that "there is no fresh water near the spot, except 



'Travels in the Interior of Mexico in 1825, 182C. 18'J7, and 1828; Loudon. 1829. p. 95. 

 'Iliid., p. 107. 

 Slbld., p. 280. 



