carried by men from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific, sailed northward along the coast. They stopped at sevyeral points, and on November 6, 1542, sighted Point Pinos at Monterey Bay, but did not land. They went on as far north as what is now called Fort Ross, in Sonoma County, and on their return trip, again passed Point Pinos on November 18, 1542. Cabrillo found no strait, but he found California; and this was only fifty years after Columbus first sighted the New World.
In the light of present day knowledge, how strange, and yet how interesting appears the plain historic fact that the discovery of Mexico, with its untold and even now but partially developed wealth, and the discovery of California, the land of riches, beauty and romance, were merely incidental to adventures undertaken for the discovery of a direct water route westward from Europe to India.
