Portola Found A Joyful Welcome At The Little Camp At San Diego.
Many had
died, and Junipero and Father Parron were just recovering from scurvy.
No tidings were yet received from the San Antonio.
The commander made a
careful inventory of supplies, and reserved enough to march to Velicata
in case the San Antonio did not appear when the remainder should be
exhausted. This, he calculated, would be a little after the middle of
March, and the 20th of that month was fixed as the date of departure,
very much to the disappointment of the priests. On February 11th Rivera
was sent to Velicata with a guard of nineteen or twenty soldiers, to
bring up the cattle and supplies that had been left there.
After sundown of the day before that appointed for the departure, a sail
appeared in the distance. It was the San Antonio, just in time to
prevent the abandonment of San Diego. She brought abundant supplies, and
Portola prepared for a second expedition in search of the Port of
Monterey. Captain Vila of the San Carlos declared, when the details of
the search were related to him, that the place where they erected the
second cross was the long-lost Port of Monterey.
On April 16th the San Antonio sailed for Monterey, carrying Junipero,
Costanso, Prat, and a cargo of stores for the new mission. On the 17th,
Portola set out by land with Fages, twelve Catalan volunteers, seven
soldados de cuera, Crespi, two muleteers, and five natives. At San Diego
was left Vila with his mate and five sailors on the San Carlos, Fathers
Parron and Gomez, with Sergeant Ortega and eight soldados de cuera as
guard, and Rivera arrived in July with over eighty mules laden with
supplies, and one hundred and sixty head of cattle.
Portola followed the same route that he took on the retreat from
Monterey, and on May 24th arrived at the Ensenada Grande under Punta de
Pinos, near the cross they had erected, December 10th. Selecting a place
for the camp, Portola took Fages, Crespi, and a soldier for guard, and
went to the cross to see if any vessel had visited the spot. They found
around the cross a ring of arrows stuck in the ground, some of which
were decked with feathers; others had fish and meat attached to them,
while at the foot of the cross was a small pile of shell-fish. As
Portola, Fages, and Crespi walked along the beach and looked out over
the bay and noted its calm and placid waters, with its swimming seals
and spouting whales, they broke forth with one voice, "This is the Port
of Monterey which we have sought. It is exactly as reported by Sebastian
Vizcaino and Cabrera Bueno."[39]
Remembering the good water at the camp on the Rio del Carmelo, Portola
ordered the expedition to Carmelo Bay by direct line, while he, with
Fages and Crespi, proceeded around the Point of Pines. They found it
well covered with pine trees, many of them large enough for masts of a
ship.
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