The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 23, July 1919 - April, 1920 Page: 205
319 p. : maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Gali and Rodriguez Cermenho
clear that the viceroys of this period displayed an unusually great
interest in the Californias, with a view to making Spanish estab-
lishments there. This interest was heightened by rumors that
Drake had discovered the strait and sailed through it.
On top of all this came a report from Francisco de Gali, com-
mander of the Manila galleon of 1584, that he had encountered
evidences of the strait in his voyage of that year. According to
the account of this voyage by Ferfiandez de Navarette,' Gali sailed
three hundred leagues east and northeast of Japan
and found open deep sea, with currents from the north and north-
west which were not diverted by the wind, whatever its violence
or direction, until, having sailed seven hundred leagues, he reached
the coast of New Spain, where he no longer observed the currents
or the depth of sea previously met with. This gave Gali the idea
that the strait between Tartary, or northern Asia, and New Spain
was in the region of the currents. He also encountered on all his
seven hundred league voyage a great number of whales, tunny-
fish, albicore, and bonitos, which are fish usually found in chan-
nels where there are currents. These circumstances confirmed him
the more in his belief that the much talked of strait was in that
vicinity.
On this occasion, too, Gali passed along the Alta California
coast. The narrative of the voyage, as translated in Bancroft,
after telling what had happened in the earlier stages of its sailing,
went on to say that
being by the same course upon the coast of New Spain under
370 30', we passed by a very high and fair land with many trees,
wholly without snow, and four leagues from the land you find
thereabout many drifts of roots, leaves of trees, reeds, and other
leaves, like fig-leaves, the like whereof we found in great abun-
dance in the country of Japan, which they eat; and some of those
that we found, I caused to be sodden with flesh, and being sodden,
they eat like coleworts; there likewise we found great store of
seals; whereby it is to be presumed and certainly to be believed,
that there are many rivers, bays and havens along by those coasts
to the haven of Acapulco. From thence we ran south-east, south-
east and by south, and south-east and by east, as we found the
wind, to the point called Cabo de San Lilcas, which is the begin-
ning of the land of California, on the north-west side, lying under
22, being five hundred leagues distant from Cape Mendocino.
1In 1802, in his introduction to the narrative of the voyage of the
8util and Memicana, which went north in 1792 to prove once for all the
truth or falsity of the reports about the strait.205
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 23, July 1919 - April, 1920, periodical, 1920; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101075/m1/211/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.