should send a vessel in search of the ports of San
Diego and of Monterey, on the supposed island, or peninsula, of Upper
California, once found by Vizcaino, but lost for a century and a half.
There they were to establish colonies and missions of the Holy Catholic
Church. They were "to spread the Catholic religion," said the letter,
"among a numerous heathen people, submerged in the obscure darkness of
paganism, thereby to extend the dominion of the king, our lord, and to
protect this peninsula of California from the ambitious designs of the
foreign nations."

"The land must be fertile for everything," says Galvez, "for it lies in
the same latitude as Spain." So they carried all sorts of household
and field utensils, and seeds of every useful plant that grew in Spain
and Mexico--the olive and the pomegranate, the grape and the orange,
not forgetting the garlic and the pepper. All these were placed in two
small ships, the San Carlos, under the gallant Captain Vila, and the
San Antonio, under Captain Perez.

Padre Junipero Serra, chief apostle of these Spanish missions, blessed
the vessels and the flags, commending the whole enterprise to the Most
Holy Patriarch San Jose, who was supposed to feel a special interest in
this class of expeditions. His early flight into Egypt gave him a
peculiar fondness for schemes involving foreign travel. Galvez
exhorted the soldiers and sailors to respect the priests, and not to
quarrel with each other. And thus they sailed away for San Diego in
the winter of 1769.

At the same time there was organized a land expedition, which should
cross the sandy deserts and cactus-covered hills and join the vessels
at San Diego. That there should be no risk of failure, Don Gaspar de
Portola divided the land forces into two divisions, one led by himself,
the other by Captain Rivera. These two parties were to take different
routes, so that if one were destroyed the other might accomplish the
work. In front of each band were driven a hundred head of cattle,
which were to colonize the new territories with their kind.

Padre Serra went with the land expedition under the command of Portola.
A barefooted friar, clad in a rough cloak confined by a rope at the
waist, looks comfortable enough in the cool shade of an Italian
cathedral; but the garb of the Franciscan order is ill-fitted to the
peculiarities of the California mesa. For the vegetation of Lower
California makes up in bristliness what it