As the sweet
tones sounded on the clear air, all the party who were able gathered
about the padre, who stood lifting the cross of Christ on high. All
joined in solemnly chanting a hymn, and a sermon was preached. Then with
more chanting, the tolling of, the bells, and the firing of muskets, was
concluded the ceremony of the founding of the first of the California
missions, that of San Diego.
Portola and his men, in spite of many discouragements, traveled steadily
northward for nearly two months until at last, one October morning, they
saw what they thought to be Point Pinos, the name given by Cabrillo to
the pine-covered cape to the south of Monterey Bay. They were right in
thinking this Point Pinos, but the sad part is that when they climbed a
hill and looked down on the bay they had come so far to find, they
failed to recognize it.
They tramped wearily over the sun-dried hills that bordered it, and
walked on its sandy beach, but could not believe the wide, open
roadstead, encircled by bare brown heights, could be the well-inclosed
port lying at the foot of hills richly green, so warmly described by
Vizcaino in his winter voyage.
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