"Always looking for the strait, Ferrelo?"

"Always, senor."

On the 3d of January, 1543, the brave man died and was buried in the
sands of Cuyler Harbor on San Miguel Island. His men called the island
Juan Rodriguez. This name was afterwards dropped, but California should
see to it that the island is rechristened in honor of the great sailor
who sleeps there.

Ferrelo later succeeded in sailing as far north as Cape Mendocino and
perhaps as far as 42i, but, though he kept as close to the shore as
possible, he failed to discover the great bay whose waters, spreading
like a sheet of silver over sixty miles of country, lay hidden just
behind the Golden Gate. Near the Oregon line he was driven back by
storms, and returned to Mexico, where he published a full account of the
voyage.



Drake

In the town of Offenburg, Germany, there is a statue of a man standing
on the deck of a ship, leaning against an anchor, his right hand
grasping a map of America, his left, a cluster of bulbous roots. On the
pedestal is the inscription, "Sir Francis Drake, the introducer of
potatoes into Europe in the year of our Lord 1586."

While it is doubtful whether this honor really belongs to Drake, an