The Log From the Sea of Cortez (Penguin Classics) by John Steinbeck Page A
Authors: John Steinbeck
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before. The Coast Pilot had not been wrong. There is indeed a light on the end of the cannery pier, but since the electricity is generated by the cannery engine, and since the cannery engine runs only in the daytime, so the light burns only in the daytime. With the arrived day, this light came on and burned bravely until dusk, when it went off again. But the Coast Pilot was absolved, it had not lied. Even Tony, who had been a little bitter the night before, was forced to revise his first fierceness. And perhaps it was a lesson to Tony in exact thinking, like those carefully worded puzzles in joke books; the Pilot said a light burned—it only neglected to say when, and we ourselves supplied the fallacy.
The great rocks on the end of the Peninsula are almost literary. They are a fitting Land’s End, standing against the sea, the end of a thousand miles of peninsula and mountain. Good Hope is this way too, and perhaps we take some of our deep feelings of termination from these things, and they make our symbols. The Friars stood high and protective against an interminable sea.
Clavigero, a Jesuit monk, came to the Point and the Peninsula over two hundred years ago. We quote from the Lake and Gray translation of his history of Lower California, 11 page fifteen: “This Cape is its southern terminus, the Red River [Colorado] is the eastern limit, and the harbor of San Diego, situated at 33 degrees north latitude and about 156 degrees longitude, can be called its western limit. To the north and the northeast it borders on the countries of barbarous nations little known on the coasts and not at all in the interior. To the west it has the Pacific Sea and on the east the Gulf of California, already called the Red Sea because of its similarity to the Red Sea, and the Sea of Cortés, named in honor of the famous conqueror of Mexico who had it discovered and who navigated it. The length of the Peninsula is about 10 degrees, but its width varies from 30 to 70 miles and more.
“The name, California,” Clavigero goes on, “was applied to a single port in the beginning, but later it was extended to mean all the Peninsula. Some geographers have even taken the liberty of comprising under this denomination New Mexico, the country of the Apaches, and other regions very remote from the true California and which have nothing to do with it.”
Clavigero says of its naming, “The origin of this name is not known, but it is believed that the conqueror, Cortés, who pretended to have some knowledge of Latin, named the harbor, where he put in, ‘Callida fornax’ because of the great heat which he felt there; and that either he himself or some one of the many persons who accompanied him formed the name California from these two words. If this conjecture be not true, it is at least credible.”
We like Clavigero for these last words. He was a careful man. The observations set down in his history of Baja California are surprisingly correct, and if not all true, they are at least all credible. He always gives one his choice. Perhaps his Jesuit training is never more evident than in this. “If you believe this,” he says in effect, “perhaps you are not right, but at least you are not a fool.”
Lake and Gray include an interesting footnote in their translation. “The famous corsair, Drake, called California ‘New Albion’ in honor of his native land. Father Scherer, a German Jesuit, and M. de Fer, a French geographer, used the name ‘Carolina Island’ to designate California, which name began to be used in the time of Charles II, King of Spain, when that Peninsula was considered an island, but these and other names were soon forgotten and that given it by the conqueror, Cortés, prevailed.”
And in a second footnote, Lake and Gray continue, “We shall add the opinion of the learned ex-Jesuit, Don José Campoi, on the etymology of the name, ‘California,’ or ‘Californias’ as others say. This Father
The great rocks on the end of the Peninsula are almost literary. They are a fitting Land’s End, standing against the sea, the end of a thousand miles of peninsula and mountain. Good Hope is this way too, and perhaps we take some of our deep feelings of termination from these things, and they make our symbols. The Friars stood high and protective against an interminable sea.
Clavigero, a Jesuit monk, came to the Point and the Peninsula over two hundred years ago. We quote from the Lake and Gray translation of his history of Lower California, 11 page fifteen: “This Cape is its southern terminus, the Red River [Colorado] is the eastern limit, and the harbor of San Diego, situated at 33 degrees north latitude and about 156 degrees longitude, can be called its western limit. To the north and the northeast it borders on the countries of barbarous nations little known on the coasts and not at all in the interior. To the west it has the Pacific Sea and on the east the Gulf of California, already called the Red Sea because of its similarity to the Red Sea, and the Sea of Cortés, named in honor of the famous conqueror of Mexico who had it discovered and who navigated it. The length of the Peninsula is about 10 degrees, but its width varies from 30 to 70 miles and more.
“The name, California,” Clavigero goes on, “was applied to a single port in the beginning, but later it was extended to mean all the Peninsula. Some geographers have even taken the liberty of comprising under this denomination New Mexico, the country of the Apaches, and other regions very remote from the true California and which have nothing to do with it.”
Clavigero says of its naming, “The origin of this name is not known, but it is believed that the conqueror, Cortés, who pretended to have some knowledge of Latin, named the harbor, where he put in, ‘Callida fornax’ because of the great heat which he felt there; and that either he himself or some one of the many persons who accompanied him formed the name California from these two words. If this conjecture be not true, it is at least credible.”
We like Clavigero for these last words. He was a careful man. The observations set down in his history of Baja California are surprisingly correct, and if not all true, they are at least all credible. He always gives one his choice. Perhaps his Jesuit training is never more evident than in this. “If you believe this,” he says in effect, “perhaps you are not right, but at least you are not a fool.”
Lake and Gray include an interesting footnote in their translation. “The famous corsair, Drake, called California ‘New Albion’ in honor of his native land. Father Scherer, a German Jesuit, and M. de Fer, a French geographer, used the name ‘Carolina Island’ to designate California, which name began to be used in the time of Charles II, King of Spain, when that Peninsula was considered an island, but these and other names were soon forgotten and that given it by the conqueror, Cortés, prevailed.”
And in a second footnote, Lake and Gray continue, “We shall add the opinion of the learned ex-Jesuit, Don José Campoi, on the etymology of the name, ‘California,’ or ‘Californias’ as others say. This Father
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