Tl^c return Voyage. 255 



crew made their demands that they should return to New Spam. 

 as we had nothing that we could eat ; and because this was ifl 

 reason, they ordered the return, searching for their consort." 

 (Cabrillo's narrator.) 



Some question has arisen about the probability of these small, 

 badly equipped vessels, with mixed crews of Spaniards and 

 Indians, broken down by scurvy, making such good time. It 

 seems quite reasonable that they reached the latitude observed, 

 and that they commenced to scud before the northwester from 

 latitude 42° 30' to a position off Fort Ross, making about 275 

 miles between the morning of March 1 and the evening of ^ 

 March 3, or about five miles per hour. From the last position 

 to San Miguel island the Capitana sailed not less than 315 miles 

 in about thirty-eight hours, or inore than eight miles per hour, 

 with an evident increase in the force of the wind. Cabrillo's 

 narrator says that " in five days they ran 200 leagues with reefed 

 foresail;" and his vessel reached San Miguel island on the same 

 day as the Smi Salvador, but later. It was a run for life, and 

 these masterful navigators must have handled their craft with 

 consummate skill and decision. I have no doubt whatever of 

 their statements. 



Concluding Remarks. 



This is a condensed review of this heroic voyage or voj^ages 

 of discovery and exploration in the very heart of our winter 

 gales. The whole story is ingenuously told ; there is no com- 

 plaint of sickness or of the incapacity of the crews. To the 

 seamen the narrative is full of pathos. 



I have endeavored to point out only a few of the identifi- 

 cations of the two principal actors ; I have not quoted from 

 Ulloa, Drake or Vizcaino. To exhibit the details of the narra- 

 tives of these five remarkable men, I drew up, in 1885, their 

 statements in parallel columns, following the localities from the 

 south toward the north, preserving the entire narratives of 

 Cabrillo and Ferrelo, and using such parts of the others as 

 related to the positions of the former or to new localities inter- 

 mediate. I then appealed to my personal knowledge of the 

 localities, and to my descriptions from the manuscript for the 

 Coast Pilot of 1889, and to the Coast Pilot of Lower California. 

 During the investigation doubtful cases of identification were 

 left in abeyance until Avell authenticated locations to the north 

 and to the south were fixed ; then the doubtful cases Avere bar- 



