Three Accounts of the Vasil'ev-Shishmarev Expedition of 1819-1822

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verify these stories, Captain Vasilev instructed Captain Shishmarev, accompanied by two officers, to go in the longboat of our sloop and to survey these bays if, in fact, they did exist, and to find the source of the Great River. The rains prevailing until the end of December and strong winds did not let us start the exploration until January 17th. On this day the weather cleared, and although it was then winter, we had warm, even hot, days again. We armed the longboat, and the captain, in the company of myself, Midshipman Hall, 12 sailors, and one warrant officer, began the expedition, taking provisions for ten days, a pocket chronometer, two sextants, two artificial horizons, a chain, a circumferentor, and an azimuth [compass] and two ordinary compasses. In addition, we supplied ourselves with warm clothing and two tents. That hunting and fishing equipment was not omitted is self-evident.

Leaving the sloop at 9 o'clock in the morning with a medium SE we directed our course toward Cape San Rafael, trying to reach it before noon in order to determine the latitude by observations and to take it as our starting point for the next survey, but the wind began to abate, and the heavily laden longboat barely moved ahead so that we could not get to the cape in time, and it was necessary, in order not to waste such a clear day for the taking of the midday height, to approach a small island. Determining its latitude, 37 ° 57' 17" N, and having dinner there, we continued farther. When we neared the pass between the two capes we were overtaken by an awful

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quite dark while they filled the canteens. Then, thinking that they could not find their way in the dark, and frightened of losing their way, they decided to spend the night at the spring. Although they heard the shots, the rumble reverberating from the high mountains broke up in the gullies, and came to them from one side and another. The had not seen the fiery signal at all, and so they had spent the night, cold and wet, without food or fire under the open sky.

We named the northern shore of these bays the San Rafael Coast after the mission situated on it. The southern one is already named St. Paul, or in Spanish, San Pablo, by the Spaniards.

Having described the land and its inhabitants, there remains only to add a few words about its resources.

California is abundant in forests, both deciduous and coniferous. They do not serve any use because the Spaniards use them only for small products and for rafters under the roof, generally covered with straw or reeds, and very seldom with tile or shingles. Of the deciduous ones, the oak, maple, beech, ash, laurel, poplar, and various other species with colored wood [?] are noticeable; of the coniferous, the cedar, pine, and larch. All these species grow either mixed with each other or in separate groves and endless forests. The size of these trees is tremendous and could supply excellent material for shipbuilding.

In the interior mountains, according to the Spaniards,