ity, Point Grey,
Shaughnessy Heights, and the Fraser River. The crew were presently all
ill of scurvy, possibly because of the unsanitary crowding, and the
schooner, almost falling to pieces, came crawling back to Nootka. The
poor Mexicans were utterly unaware that they had discovered a gateway
for northern empire. Narvaez himself lay almost unconscious in his
berth. Elisa sent them all home to Mexico on furlough; and, on hearing
their report, the viceroy of Mexico ordered out two ships, the _Sutil_
and the _Mexicana_, Don Galiano and Don Valdes in command, to follow up
the charting of the coast northward from Vancouver Island to the
Russian settlements.

Small ringing of bells, no blaring of trumpets at all, prayers
a-plenty, but little ammunition and less food, accompanied the deep-sea
voyagings of these poor Spanish pilots. When Bering set out, he had
the power of the whole Russian empire behind him. When Cook set {65}
out, he had the power of the whole British Navy behind him. But when
the poor Mexican peons set out, they had nothing behind them but the
branding iron, or slavery in the mines, if they failed. Yet they sang
as they sailed their rickety death-traps, and they laughed as they
rowed; and when the tide-rip caught them, they sank without a cry to
any but the Virgin. Look at a map of the west coast of the Pacific
from the Horn to Sitka. First were the Spaniards at every harbour
gate; and yet to-day, of all their deep-sea findings on that coast, not
a rod, not a foot, does Spain own. It was, of course, Spain's insane
policy of keeping the Pacific 'a closed sea' that concealed the
achievements of the Mexican pilots and buried them in oblivion. But if
actual accomplishments count, these pilots with their ragged peon
crews, half-bloods of Aztec woman and Spanish adventurer, deserve
higher rank in the roll of Pacific coast exploration than history has
yet accorded them.

England, it may be believed, did not calmly submit to seeing the ships
and forts of her traders seized at Nootka. It was not that England
cared for the value of three vessels engaged in foreign trade. Still
less did she {66} care for the log-huts dignified by the name of a
fort. But she was mistress of the seas, and had been since the
destruction of the Armada. And as mistress of the seas, she could not
tolerate as much as the seizure of a fishing-smack. For some time
there were mutterings of war, but at length diplomacy prev