At San Diego, Portola left the sick under the care of the faithful
surgeon, Prat, and a guard of ten cuera soldiers; Captain Vila of the
San Carlos, with a few seamen; Frays Junipero Serra, Juan Vizcaino, and
Fernando Parron, a carpenter, a blacksmith, and a few Lower California
Indians, some forty persons in all. The governor also left with them a
sufficient number of horses and mules and about sixty loads[15] of
provisions. On July 16th, two days after the Portola expedition started,
Junipero founded, with appropriate ceremonies, the mission of San Diego
de Alcala, the first mission established in Alta California. The deaths
continued, and before Portola's return in January, eight soldiers, four
sailors, one servant, and eight Indians died, leaving but about twenty
persons at the camp.
We will now follow the governor. Relying somewhat on the supply ship,
San Jose, which was to meet him at Monterey, but which, as we have seen,
was lost at sea, and also on the supplies to be brought by the San
Antonio, the governor, knowing the uncertainties of a sea voyage, took
with him one hundred mules loaded with provisions, sufficient, he
concluded, to last him for six months.
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