ablished in Alta California. The deaths
continued, and before Portola's return in January, eight soldiers, four
sailors, one servant, and eight Indians died, leaving but about twenty
persons at the camp.

We will now follow the governor. Relying somewhat on the supply ship,
San Jose, which was to meet him at Monterey, but which, as we have
seen, was lost at sea, and also on the supplies to be brought by the San
Antonio, the governor, knowing the uncertainties of a sea voyage,
took with him one hundred mules loaded with provisions, sufficient, he
concluded, to last him for six months.

On the march the following order was observed. Sergeant Ortega, with
six or eight soldiers, went in advance, laid out the route, selected
the camping place, and cleared the way of hostile Indians by whom he was
frequently surrounded. At the head of the column rode the comandante,
with Fages, Costanso, the two priests, and an escort of six Catalonia
volunteers; next came the sappers and miners, composed of Indians, with
spades, mattocks, crowbars, axes, and other implements used by pioneers;
these were followed by the main body divided into four bands of
pack-animals, each with its muleteers and a guard of presidial soldiers.
The last was the rear guard, commanded by Captain Rivera, convoying the
spare horses and mules (caballada y mulada).

The presidial soldiers were provided with two kinds of arms, offensive
and defensive. The defensive consisted of the cuera (leather jacket)
and the adarga (shield)[16]. The first, being made in the form of a coat
without sleeves, was composed of six or seven thicknesses of dressed
deer skins impervious to the Indian arrows, except at very short range.
The adarga was of two thicknesses of raw bulls-hide, borne on the left
arm, and so managed by the trooper as to defend himself and his horse
against the arrows and spears of the Indians; in addition, they used a
species of apron of leather, fastened to the pommel of the saddle, with
a fall to each side of the horse down to the stirrup, wide enough to
cover the thigh and a leg of the horseman, and protect him when riding
through the brush. This apron was called the armas. Their offensive arms
were the lance, which they managed with great dexterity on horseback,
the broadsword, and a short musket, carried in a case. Costanso, who was
an officer of the regular army, bears testimony to the unceasing labor
of the presidial soldiers of California on this march