264 
SCENES IN THE PACIFIC. 
possible dispatch. It is divided into two companies; so that 
if one of them shall be destroyed, the other may chance to be 
saved. Don Gasper de Portala is the commissioned Governor of 
the Californias and commander of this land expedition. He is 
a captain of dragoons in the Spanish army. Captain Fernando 
Rivera y Moncada is his second. The latter receives command 
of the first division of the landsmen ; and in the month of Sep¬ 
tember, 1768, takes up his line of march for the north. He soon 
arrives at a place now called Nuestra Senora de los Angelos, 
on the Indian frontier, and having found some supplies and 
baggage, sent in launches from the missions to this place, he 
proceeds eighteen leagues northward, to a valley of excellent 
pastures, wood and water, and halts. Here he remains until 
the first day of March, 1769, and again marches northward, 
until the twenty-fourth of the same month, when he arrives at 
the port of San Diego, in latitude 32° N. Here he finds the 
San Carlos and San Antonio at anchor. These vessels have 
suffered greatly from storms and contrary winds. The first 
arrived on the first of May, 1768. Her whole people, except 
the officers, cook, and one seaman, have died of the scurvy 
and thirst .and hunger. The San Antonio arrived on the 
eleventh of April, having lost eight of her crew by the scurvy. 
The San Josef was not seen after she left Loretto. Don 
Rivera y Moncada, his twenty-five soldiers, his three mule¬ 
teers and his converted Indians, Padre Crispi and a midship¬ 
man, now form a camp upon the green plain, and rest from 
the fatigues of a march of fifty-four days, over the dry crags 
of the Californian wilderness. 
The second part of the land expedition, with its mules, 
horses, black cattle, muleteers and baggage, on the thirteenth 
of May, 1769, are at a place called Villacata; and Padre 
Junipero and the Governor are with them. They are waiting 
the arrival of the troops; and while thus unemployed, ex¬ 
amine the surrounding country—find it valuable, and conse- 
. crate it to the use of the mission in the neighborhood called 
San Francisco de Borja; and hither this mission is to be 
