Gulf of Calfornia at the Mouth of the Colorado.
Photograph by DELANCY GILL.
Coronado had left a well-provisioned ship, the San Gabriel, at Aguaiauall, for Alarçon to bring along. These supplies were for the use of the army when the two parties should meet in the north from time to time. Alarçon added the vessel to his fleet and proceeded along up the coast, keeping as near the land as the water would permit, and constantly on the lookout for signals from the other party, or for Amerinds who might be able to give information concerning the position of the general. Thus, at last, he came to the very head of the gulf where Ulloa had wondered at the rush of waters and had turned away without investigation. “And when we were come,” he says, “to the flats and shoals from whence the aforesaid fleet returned, it seemed to me, as to the rest, that we had the firm land before us, and that those shoals were so perilous and fearful that it was a thing to be considered whether with our skiffs we could enter in among them: and the pilots and the rest of the company would have had us do as Captain Ulloa did, and have returned back again.” But Alarçon 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. Alarçon 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 Alarçon 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, where we found a very mighty river, which ran with so great fury of a stream, that we could hardly sail against it.”
Alarçon’s Ships Struggling With the Great Bore of the Colorado—1540.
Drawing by F.S. DELLENBAUGH.
Here, then, began the acquaintance between the European and the river now known as the Colorado of the West. The experience of Alarçon was immediately typical of much that was to follow in the centuries of endeavour to arrive at an intimate knowledge of this savage torrent.
