south lay the rugged shore line with its sea-corroded cliffs, indented
at one point into a half-moon of glistening beach and sweeping on again
into vanishing and reappearing shapes of mist.

Far to the northwest a giant arm of land reached out into the water,
high and stark and rocky; further on a group of white farallones lay in
the tossing foam and over them great flocks of seabirds dipped and
circled. Finally, along the coast to the northward, they descried those
chalk cliffs which Francis Drake had aptly named New Albion, and still
beyond, what seemed to be the mouth of an inlet.

Dispute sprang up among them. Since July 14th they had been searching
between this place and San Diego for the port of Monterey. "Perhaps this
is the place," said Crespi, the priest, reluctantly. "Vizcaino may have
been amiss when he located it in 37 degrees."

"Yes," spoke Captain Fernando de Rivera, "these explorers are careless
dogs. One seldom finds the places they map out so gaily. And what do
they care who dies of the hunger or scurvy--drinking their flagons in
Mexico or Madrid? A curse, say I, on the lot of them."

Portola turned an irritated glance of disapproval on his henchmen. "What
say you, my pathfinder?" he addressed Sergeant Jose Ortega, chief
of Scouts.

"That no one may be certain, your excellency," the scout-chief answered.
"But," his eyes met those of his commander with a look of grim
significance, "one may learn."

Portola laid a hand almost affectionately on the other's leather-covered