rest of the company would have had us do as Captain Ulloa did,
and have returned back again." But Alarcon was not of a retreating
disposition; the fierce Colorado had now met its first conqueror.
It must be remembered, for Ulloa's sake, that there was not the same
incentive for him to risk his ships and the lives of his men in an
attempt to examine the shoals and currents of this dangerous place.
Alarcon was looking for and expecting to meet Coronado at any time.
He knew that Coronado was depending on the supplies carried by the San
Gabriel, and it would have been rank cowardice on the part of Alarcon
to have backed out at the first difficulty. But he had no intention of
retiring from the contest, for he says:

"But because your Lordship commanded me that I should bring you the
secret of that gulf, I resolved that although I had known I should have
lost the ships, I would not have ceased for anything to have seen the
head thereof, and therefore I commanded Nicolas Zamorano, Pilot Major,
and Dominico del Castello that each of them should take a boat, and lead
in their hands, and run in among those shoals, to see if they could find
out a channel whereby the ships might enter in; to whom it seemed that
the ships might sail up higher (although with great travail and danger),
and in this sort I and he began to follow our way which they had taken,
and within a short while after we found ourselves fast on the sands
with all our three ships, in such sort that one could not help another,
neither could the boats succour us because the current was so great that
it was impossible for one of us to come to another. Whereupon we were
in such great jeopardy that the deck of the Admiral was oftentimes under
water; and if a great surge of the sea had not come and driven our ship
right up and gave her leave, as it were, to breathe awhile, we had there
been drowned; and likewise the other two ships found themselves in very
great hazard, yet because they were lesser and drew less water their
danger was not so great as ours. Now it pleased God upon the return
of the flood that the ships came on float, and so we went forward.
And although the company would have returned back, yet for all this
I determined to go forward and to pursue our attempted voyage. And we
passed forward with much ado, turning our stems now this way, now that
way, to seek and find the channel. And it pleased God that after this
sort we came to the very bottom of the bay,