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{267} For the first two weeks of April, the _Discovery_ and
_Chatham_ had driven under cloud of sail and sunny skies; but on the
16th, just when the white fret of reefs ahead forewarned land, heavy
weather settled over the ships. To the fore, bare, majestic, compact
as a wall, the coast of New Albion towered out of the surf near
Mendocino. Cheers went up from the lookout for the landfall of Francis
Drake's discovery. Then torrents of rain washed out surf and shore.
The hurricane gales, that had driven all other navigators out to sea
from this coast, now lashed Vancouver. Such smashing seas swept over
decks, that masts, sails, railings, were wrenched away.
Was it ill-luck or destiny, that caught Vancouver in this gale? If he
had not been driven offshore here, he might have been just two weeks
before Gray on the _Columbia_, and made good England's claim of all
territory between New Spain and Alaska. When the weather cleared on
April 27, the ocean was turgid, plainly tinged river-color by inland
waters; but ground swell of storm and tide rolled across the shelving
sandbars.


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