Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/46

28 One other visit to California this year requires special attention, from the fact that the voyager published his experiences in a book. I allude to that of Benjamin Morrell Jr., in the American schooner Tartar. Having sailed from New York in July 1824, he arrived at San Diego from the south in April 1825, perhaps bringing a cargo for Hartnell from Chili, but chiefly bent on catching seals. His description of San Diego, where he remained twelve days, and his still more absurd description of his adventures on a hunting tour in the interior — where with seven Spanish companions he defeated fifty native mounted warriors in a desperate hand-to-hand battle, killing seventeen of their number, and himself receiving numerous wounds — leave no room to doubt that the valiant captain was a liar. He touched at Monterey and San Francisco, whence, finding that there was no prospect of success in the seal-fishery, he sailed in May for the Hawaiian Islands, going up to Cape Blanco and down to Socorro Island on the way. Many of Morrell's geographical and other details are tolerably accurate. His book was not published until 1832. He ventured on a prophecy "that long before another century rolls round the principal avenue of trade between the United States and the different sea-ports on the Pacific Ocean will be the river Colorado, as connected with the gulf of California. The China and India trade will of course ultimately flow through the same channel." Not a cargo has yet been known to be sent down the great cañon — but the century has not yet rolled round.