these lakes, and also that some great river there might be
the cause thereof."*

* From Hakluyt's Voyages. The spelling has been modernised.

This seems to have been the very first visit of Europeans to the mouth
of the Colorado, but as Ulloa did not see the river, and only surmised
that there might be one there, it cannot be considered in any way a
discovery. It has been supposed by some that Friar Juan de la Asumpcion,
in 1538, might have reached the Colorado in his deep river which he
could not cross, but this river was more likely a branch of the Yaqui,
for the friar was told that ten days beyond, to the north, there was
another larger river settled by many people, whose houses had three
stories, and whose villages were enclosed. This describes the Rio Grande
and its southern settlements perfectly, so that, had he been on the
Colorado, or even the Gila, the Rio Grande could not have been described
as "ten days to the north." Ulloa took possession formally, according to
Spanish custom, and then sailed southward again. Though he had not found
the great river, he had determined one important geographical point:
that Lower California was not, as had been supposed, an island, but
was a peninsula; nevertheless for a full century thereafter it was
considered an island. Had Ulloa followed up the rush of the current he
would have been the discoverer of the Colorado River, but in spite
of his marvelling at the fury of it he did not seem to consider an
investigation worth while; or he may have been afraid of wrecking his
ships. His inertia left it for a bolder man, who was soon in his wake.
But the intrepid soul of Cortes must have been sorely disappointed at
the meagre results of this, his last expedition, which had cost him a
large sum, and compelled the pawning of his wife's jewels. The discovery
of the mouth of a great river would have bestowed on this voyage a more
romantic importance, and would consequently have been somewhat healing
to his injured pride, if not to his depleted purse; but his sun was
setting. This voyage of Ulloa was its last expiring ray. With an
artistic adjustment to the situation that seems remarkable, Ulloa, after
turning the end of the peninsula and sailing up the Lower Californian
coast, sent home one solitary vessel, and vanished then forever.
Financially wrecked, and exasperated to the last degree by the slights
and indignities of his enemies and of the Mendoza government, Cortes
left f