USA > Washington > History of Washington the evergreen state : from early dawn to daylight with portraits and biographies Vol. I > Part 5
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And now comes the question, did Magellan know before- hand of this channel for which he so confidently sailed ? If Piga- fetta were a more reliable author, the following remarkable pas- sage from his account of the voyage would settle it : " We all believed," it runs, speaking of the strait, " that it was a cul de sac ; but the captain knew that he had to navigate through a very well-concealed strait, having seen it in a chart preserved in the treasury of the King of Portugal, and made by Martin of Bohemia, a man of great parts." To this Gomara alludes, but doubts it, saying the chart showed no strait whatsoever. Her- rera argues on the same side as Pigafetta, and refers to Martin's chart mentioned above. Oviedo, writing in 1546, denies any preknowledge on Magellan's part of his discovery, saying, " none had remembrance till he showed it to us ;" but again he adds that even if he had, " more is owing to his (Magellan's) capacity than to the science of the Bohemian." But we must avoid this tanglewood of argument, full of labyrinths and by- paths, many of which lead to nothing.
The strait is reached, the order given for the fleet to enter. Strangely enough, as in the case of Columbus, Theret tells us that Magellan was the first to observe it. "It is not improbable,"
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says a recent English writer, "that the great desire of his life should lend the leader of the expedition a preternatural keenness of vision and reward him as it did Columbus." But much of this, we fancy, is to be taken cum grano salis. The muse of His- tory, ever cold and calm, is supposed to avoid all that is merely dramatic and eschew the sensational ; but, nevertheless, not un- frequently rounds her majestic periods with matter which, while it gives point and vivacity, pertains to both. To return : As the ships enter, the Vittoria leading, and therefore giving her name, in one narrative at least, to the new discovery, they pass a cape on the starboard hand, to which, it being St. Ursula's Day, they call the Cape of the Eleven Thousand Vir- gins. The bay is spacious and affords good shelter ; they make its latitude 52° 3' south. The admiral orders the Conception and San Antonio to continue the reconnaissance. Meanwhile the flagship anchors with the Vittoria to await their return, their absence being limited to five days. During the night one of the storms peculiar to those regions breaks upon them. They are forced to weigh, standing off and on till it abates. Their detached consorts suffer equally-attempt to rejoin the admiral, are unable to weather the separating cape, probably the eastern horn of the Great Orange Bank-and are obliged to put about, seeing nothing but destruction before them ; for the bay, as they thought then, appeared to have no visible opening at its head. As they give themselves up for lost they round Ane- gada Point, and the entrance of the "First Narrows" revealed itself. Up there they run, thankful for their escape, and emerge from them to find themselves in a great bay beyond (St. Philip or Boucaut Bay, the Lago de los Estrechos of Oviedo). They prosecute their explorations to the entrance of Broad Reach, and then return, having rapidly surveyed the neighboring waters and assured themselves that the strait led onward an immense distance to the south.
Magellan meanwhile awaits them with infinite anxiety, fear- ing they are lost ; the more so as he notices several smokes on the shore-signals, as he afterward ascertained, lit by two men from the missing ships to notify him of their presence, but at the time presumed to indicate their shipwreck. While thus doubting, the San Antonio and Conception suddenly heave in sight, crowding all sail and gay with flags. As they approach
Eng. 27, F & Kernan, NY.
E le Ferguson
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they discharge their large bombards and shout for joy ; "upon which," says Pigafetta, " we united our shouts with theirs and thanked God and the Blessed Virgin Mary as we resumed our journey."
The captains of the two ships --- probably separated during their search, for their accounts differ-make their report to the admiral that, in their opinion, the inlet led onward into the Pacific ; for not only had they ascended it for three days with- out finding any sign of its termination, but the soundings were of great depth, and in many cases they could get no bottom. The flood, moreover, appeared stronger than the ebb. It was impossible, they said, that the strait should not continue.
After penetrating three or four wiles within the First Nar- rows, the admiral signals his fleet to anchor, and sends a boat on shore to explore the country -most likely attracted by the ap- pearance of habitations ; for Herrera tells us that at the distance of a mile inland the men came upon a building containing more than two hundred native graves. On the coast, also, a dead whale of gigantic size, with many bones of these animals, were discovered, whence they concluded that the storms of that region were both frequent and severe.
" It is impossible," says Guillemand, from whose excellent condensation of Magellan's life we have largely quoted, " from the sketchy and confused accounts that have come down to us, to reconstruct an exact itinerary of the passage of the strait or to present events in any certain chronological order." Some few facts are not to be controverted. We know that the fleet emerged from the strait on November 28th ; that it was on the 21st that Magellan issued his order for a council of officers as to continuing his voyage (evidently with the determination to dis- regard it should it be unfavorable), which resulted in an agree- ment to proceed ; the only dissentient being the pilot of the San Antonio, a countryman and relative, but nevertheless enemy, of the admiral, to whom Magellan replies in his forcible fashion : " That if he had to eat the leather of his ship's yards he would still go on and discover what he had promised to the emperor, and that he trusted that God would aid them and give them good fortune"-an extremity to which he was actually subjected, since, in the scarcity and privation of the long passage across the Pacific, they were obliged to eat the leather from the yards.
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Next day, making sail down Broad Reach, they approached a point on their port hand. Beyond they came to three chan- nels. Magellan anchored to explore them, selecting the south- eastern arm, meanwhile following the main channel himself, in company with the Vittoria. Rounding Cape Froward, the ad- miral continues on for fifteen leagues and anchors on a river to which he gives the name of the River of Sardines, from the abundance of those fish obtained there. The crews also water and cut wood, which they found so fragrant in the burning that, as we are quaintly told, "it afforded them much consolation." Shortly after their arrival in this port they sent on a boat well manned and provisioned to explore the channel farther. In three days it returned with the joyful intelligence that they had sighted the cape which terminated the strait, and had seen the open sea beyond. So delighted were the explorers with this happy termination to their anxieties that salvos of artillery were discharged, and Magellan and those with him wept for joy.
And so the three doors (the first being the voyage of Colum- bus, or main entrance, so to speak ; the second, or side door, the discovery of the Pacific by Balboa ; and the third, the find- ing of the strait by Magellan) stand open for the exploration and settlement of our own Northwest Pacific coasts.
And now a word or two ere we part with these, the prelimi- nary and, perhaps, most fascinating steps of our historic jour- ney. Let us linger by the way while we consider the enormous difficulties and many elements of failure which menaced the suc- cess of these initial efforts to penetrate and reveal the unknown.
Columbus had to combat the elements of doubt, superstition, fear, and a consensus of opinion which, even among the learned, regarded his theories as chimerical, and himself but a crack- brained enthusiast or scheming adventurer. He succeeded, like his followers, through a strong, brave, and incisive individual- ity, which, next to his trust in God, taught him to rely upon himself, and thereby mould and influence others. Who shall doubt that the purifying influences of the crucible of mental pain, born of the many rebuffs and repeated disappointments through which he was called to pass, prepared him, though all unconsciously to himself, to succeed in his final trial ?
With Balboa, the discoverer by land, it was somewhat differ- ent. His men, strongly devoted and entirely confiding in his
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genius, would have followed him to the death. But read Lieu- tenant Strain's narrative of the Darien expedition of our own times, with its lamentable results of death, suffering, and final failure ; where, as Strain himself told the narrator, he took but one credit to himself : no act of cannibalism disgraced the manhood of those who slowly starved to death ; adding the serio-comic incident that two officers of the expedition found a live toad, which, having bitten off its head, they proceeded to devour raw, leaving the " poison part" on the ground till the hungrier of the two, with the remark, "Tom, you are growing mighty particular about your eating," added the member with its fabled jewel to his repast. Read this attempt, with all the advantages of our modern times, to pierce the vast solitudes of the tropic wilderness, and then remember that, unlike Strain, Balboa had battles to fight with the natives, while his men were clad in armor and encumbered by the weighty weapons of their day. Yet, thanks in great measure, it is true, to their Indian allies, they succeeded when success seemed impossible.
In the case of Magellan, he had to encounter gales in what is perhaps still the dread of all mariners, the tempest-swept regions of the stormy Cape Horn. Mutiny, as in the case of Colum- bus, threatened, and actual desertion and shipwreck attended his difficult progress. His ships, too, as compared with those which brave the South Seas to-day, were but as paper. His whole armament cost but £5032 6s. 3d., or about $25,000 of our money, and even this was reduced by stores left behind $2600. Of this sum the ships themselves with their armament cost but $11,245. Even then the vessels selected were old, leaky, and unfit for the severe service for which they were designed. But in those days, we fancy, explorers were looked upon as, after all (unless fitting out their expeditions at their own cost and charges), little better than mendicants; and it passes as a proverb the world over that " beggars must not be choosers."
The number of articles for barter were, however, very large, their total cost being $4825, and (delicate compliment to female vanity) consisted of "looking-glasses for women, great and fayre," five hundred pounds of " crystals" which are diamonds (?) of all colors ; knives, fish-hooks, stuffs and velvets, ivory, quick- silver (2240 lbs.), and brass bracelets (a full line of cheap jew- elry, we fancy)-all figure largely in the list. But it appears
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that bells were considered the most useful articles for trade, of which no less than twenty thousand were taken.
These fleets of exploration seem to have been fitted out in those early dates with an economy ofttimes extravagant in the end, because fatal to success.
Eng ªvy F G. Kernan, N. Y.
and p Jerking
CHAPTER V.
OTHER ATTEMPTS TO PENETRATE "THE NORTHERN MYSTERY."
" A wild and occult land, and strangely peopled, good Antonio."
THE term Northwest coast, which covers the territory lying between the latitudes of 42° to 54° north, includes Oregon, Wash- ington, and British Columbia. It is, however, with Washington alone that our present story has to do ; the neighboring regions interest us only as their history is entwined with or affects that of the State of which we are writing. Yet until these interests become separate and specific, we are obliged to recognize and treat our subject generically under the common heading of Northwest coast.
That it should have been approached, discovered, and ex- plored in the first instance from the sea was natural enough- its eastern borders being left to those inland travellers whose adventurous steps first traversed its wildernesses and penetrated its mountain canyons.
It is generally, and very properly, supposed that truth is preferable to fiction, and more fruitful of good, even though it be no bigger than the mustard-seed. Nevertheless, paradoxical as it may appear, this western world of ours owes not a little to falsehood, to the mythical stories of explorers who opened the door to real discoveries by the announcement of those based only on their own vivid imaginations or shameless mendacity. As the fabled fountain of youth led Ponce de Leon to the find- ing of a real Florida, and the exaggerated tales of untold riches beguiled Balboa to the discovery of the Pacific, so this, our own Northwest coast, was sought, surveyed, and geographically mapped out rather for what it did not have than for that which it really possessed. The fabled Strait of Anian, which should have opened somewhere upon our shores into the Pacific, but failed to materialize, is a case in point. It was the very mystery that veiled the possibilities of what might be that gave zest to the pursuit. Like the yet unexplored valleys of the Olympian
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range, this aurora with which fancy decks and desire enlarges the possibilities of the unseen, will ever offer the subtlest tempta- tion to the adventurer and prospector, let the clouds of difficulty and danger darken as they may.
It is patent to every intelligent student of our early American history that international complications were produced and great confusion of rights and boundaries resulted from the rivalries of nations claiming the right of first discovery upon our coasts, and thenceforth attempting to hold and possess those lands, having no better title than a cross, cut by some voyager upon the shore, a banner waved over the sea, or some stone heaps on a mountain-top ; of all which Balboa's melodramatic proclama- tion, standing knee deep in the Pacific, is no bad illustration. The New World at the time of which we write seemed a prey to be disrupted by the vultures of national greed which flocked from every civilized land to seize and dismember the new-found spoil. Russia, descending from her northern snows, added, in the course of time, by slow but sure approaches, Alaska to her already overgrown empire. The haughty Spaniard, displaying the emblazoned banner of Castile and Leon, was first in the field, planting the symbol of his faith beside his national standard, claiming the Californias for his own. Later on we find the Eng- lish-speaking race, Great Britain and America, contending for their division of metes and bounds, and building a wall of higher civilization between the Tartar and the Don.
But though interested individuals sought from time to time to utilize the possibilities of what Bancroft forcibly styles " the Northern mystery," the spirit of enterprise seemed to have died out, and save for a few weak and fruitless efforts, it was not until late in the eighteenth century that any determined attempt was made to obtain adequate results ; and even then it was probably due, so far as Spain was concerned, to a fear of Rus- sian encroachment upon the Northwest. Had the hidden wealth of Upper California been known, or the rich return one day to be reaped from the furs and peltries of the Northwest, it would have been different. As it was, our sterile shores were a menace, the gloom of our pine-clad mountain sides a threat. We were the exemplification of the old Latin line which tells us that " the empty traveller may sing in the presence of the robber." The Northwest coast was not worth robbing, for it had nothing
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to lose. So it came about that dread of the Muscovite rather than any hope of fresh gain induced Spain once more to give her ships to the sea, to insure the security of that which she had already taken. As if her activity were contagious, Eng- lish and American explorers also make their appearance on the coast-the Russians were already there-and ere long, through their united efforts, the shadows were swept away. The light of discovery penetrated every nook and cranny of our coast and lifted every veil. Little by little the fog was dissi- pated, till every cape and headland, every sound, bay, harbor, and estuary of the Northwest coast had been more or less visited, explored, and claimed by one party or the other. The misty dawn of romance had given place to the full-orbed day of cold reality. The " Northern mystery" was dissolved, and specula- tive fancy lay cold and dead.
It now becomes our task, as briefly as we may, to follow, or at least lightly outline, some of the voyages that more particu- larly settled the geography of our sea-beaten western border.
The wave of northwestern discovery, so to speak, advanced like a tide, with frequent and irregular intervals, yet neverthe- less going steadily, as it were, inch by inch, still sweeping up- ward on its northern path, till from its starting-point under Balboa at the Isthmus, it lost itself among the bergs of the frozen Arctic seas.
Up to the middle of the sixteenth century this tidal wave of northern exploration had rather languished, only reaching 60° on the Atlantic, and barely touching the Pacific coast at 44°, while inland, a single explorer-one Coronado-had advanced into what is the Kansas of our day. In 1584 Francesco de Gali, coming from the west, reaches our coast in 37° 30' (possibly, says Bancroft, 57º 30'), observes its appearance, but does not land, sailing southward. Another navigator, Cermeñon, also from the west, is wrecked, in 1595, at Drake's Bay, just above the present site of San Francisco. Then comes a representative of the Lion of England, ever greedy for spoil, of whom we shall have more to say in another chapter. He too is looking for that mythical northern strait ; and good cause he has to do so, for his ship is laden with the spoil rent by piracy from the galleons and villages of the southern seas, and he would fain escape the Spanish cruisers who are watching for his return, to regain their
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plundered treasure. He finds not the strait, yet through his means the wave of discovery has now reached 43º, and therefore begins to interest us. Not finding his northern passage, he returns to Drake's Bay, and so sails homeward via the Cape of Good Hope, thereby avoiding his enemies, who might have interfered with the grand reception that awaits him, which, had he been judged by the common law, would have conducted him to Tyburn Hill and left him there with the decoration of a halter. But, after all, he only spoiled the spoilers.
This voyage of Drake's, nefarious as it seems, was neverthe- less destined to exert a far-reaching influence, becoming, as will be seen, an important factor in the protracted discussions between Great Britain and the United States as to their respective claims to Oregon Territory, when these, of course, included Washing- ton. For this reason, and because it is just possible that Drake's " fair and good bay" may have been the Bay of San Francisco, we will outline his voyage, and then quote from the "Coast Pilot" and other authorities much relied on at the time of the boundary controversy ; finally settled in our favor by the treaty of June 15th, 1846, which recognized our right to the territory south of 49° north latitude. Evans says that "if the expression of opinion was necessary, it would be that the weight of probability and authority establishes that Sir Francis Drake never saw the coast of Northwest America north of 43º north latitude." The same author sketches Drake's voyage quite graphically ; and we shall endeavor to reduce it to quotable limits as the first English visit to the Northwest coast. We may premise, however, that England's " Virgin Queen," Elizabeth, as shrewd and far-seeing a princess as ever sat upon a throne (full of personal vanities, but never dead to her own interests or those of the people whom she governed), was growing restive and envious under the known discoveries and yet larger assumptions of her enemy and rival, Spain, to hold and colonize the territory on both continents of America. Rome had ceased to rule Eng- land. Elizabeth sternly denied the right of "the Bishop of Rome" to bestow upon his ally, the Spaniard, what did not be- long to him, nor could she understand why either her subjects or those of any other European prince should be debarred from traffic in the Indies. It was while in this favorable mood that Francis Drake, a young man who had already distinguished
Il Metcalfe.
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himself on predatory voyages to the West Indies, approached his sovereign with the proposition that he should make a voyage into the South Sea through the Strait of Magellan, no English- man having yet done so. Elizabeth, foreseeing its advantages, gave her royal assent, and, what was still more to the purpose, furnished the outfit. We now quote from Evans as follows :
" Drake's own vessel, the Pelican, of one hundred tons, the Elizabeth, of eighty, and the little Marigold, of but thirty, with two pinnaces, manned by one hundred and sixty men in all- such was the force of the expedition which sailed December 13th, 1577, from Plymouth. The two pinnaces were broken up before reaching the Strait of Magellan, which was entered on the 20th of August, 1578. Before passing through, he changed the name of his vessel to the Golden Hind. On the 6th of Sep- tember the Marigold parted company and was never heard of afterward. The Elizabeth did not pass through the strait, but deserted Drake and returned to England."
And here we interrupt Evans's narrative to remark upon the singular resemblance between Magellan's and Drake's experi- ences in this latitude. Both lose a vessel, both suffer from the desertion of a consort, yet both are equally undismayed by these incidents. To return :
" Alone on the Golden Hind, Drake, on the 25th of Septem- ber, sailed out of the strait into the open Pacific, and heading northward, pursued his voyage, skirting the Spanish-American coasts from Chili to Mexico, seizing and sacking defenceless ships and towns. To avoid encountering Spanish cruisers, liable to be met should he return by the Strait of Magellan, Drake sought a northern passage into the Atlantic Ocean, where, as detailed in the narratives of the voyage, 'the men, being thus speedily come out of the extreme heat, found the air so cold that, being pinched with the same, they complained of the ex- tremity thereof.' " It is a pleasant thing to read, even at this early day, that the air of our northwestern coasts was too bracing to favor piracy, and nipped the rascals shrewdly. "He then stood east, made the coast, and sailed southward in search of a harbor, until the 7th of June, ' when it pleased God,' says Drake, ' to send him into a fair and good bay within thirty degrees toward the line.' In this bay he remained five weeks, refitting his vessel, and took possession of the country in the name of
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Queen Elizabeth, calling it New Albion. He then sailed for Eng- land by way of the Cape of Good Hope," escaping by this con- venient back door with his rich booty, and arrived at Plymouth September 27th, 1560. " And now," says the "Coast Pilot," " comes the question, Was this the Bay of San Francisco ? Humboldt places Drake's Bay in 38° 10' north latitude -- the Puerto de Bodega of Spanish maps. Later authorities fixed his post under the lee of Port Reyes, 37° 59' 5". The adjacent cliffs being white, resembling the coasts of England in the vicinity of Dover, suggested the name 'New Albion.' The latitude of San Francisco Bay is 37° 59'. Drake's continuing in this bay thirty- six days, and the white appearance of the land, warrants the opin- ion that Drake found that fair and good bay inside of the Golden Gate. Its entrance was first seen by Ferello, March 3d, 1543, who, running down the coast before a strong wind, saw what he supposed to be the mouth of a great river. Governor Gaspar de Portola, in 1769, made land discovery of the bay. Professor Davidson, of the U. S. Coast Survey, the best authority, says Drake's Bay is the Port Francisco of the Spaniards of about 1595. It was certainly known before the time of Vizcaino, who, having separated from his tender, sought her in Port Francisco, and, according to Vizcaino's account, to see if anything was to be found of the San Augustine, which, in 1595, had been sent from the Philippine Islands to survey the coast of California, under the direction of Cermeñon, a pilot of known abilities, but was wrecked in this harbor. Among others on board the San Augustine was the chief pilot of the squadron, Velunos, who recognized the bay as being that where he was wrecked."
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