On his southward journey Resanof reconnoitred the mouth of the Columbia River, seeking a site for a future settlement. He was unable to enter the river owing to contrary winds; and the condition of his crew, debilitated by lack of proper food and suffering from scurvy, caused him to hasten on. He heard that a party of U. S. soldiers were building a fort there. This rumor doubtless came from the presence of Lewis and Clarke near the present Astoria. While on this visit to San Francisco Resanof met the Spanish beauty, Dona Concepcion de Arguello, of whom one of the visitors said, "She was lively and animated, had sparkling, love-inspiring eyes, beautiful teeth, pleasing and expressive features, a fine form and a thousand other charms," and he lost his heart to her. The romance of the Russian courtier and the fair Californian furnished to Bret Harte the theme for some of his most beautiful verse. Resanof, hurrying home to Russia to gain the Imperial permission to his marriage, died at Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, and Dona Concepcion waited for years for the coming of her lover, not knowing that he lay dead under the Siberian snows. When the news of his sad fate came to her she donned the habit of a nun and devoted herself to charitable works. This visit to California was the beginning of a trade that continued for many years, through all the period of Russian occupation. During the days of the gold discoveries in California large shipments of goods were made from Sitka to San Francisco, and after the sale of the territory to the United States great quantities of merchandise were shipped from the warehouses of the Company to the California metropolis, amounting to over a quarter of a million dollars in one year. The breadstuffs for the colonies were procured from California, from San Francisco and from Ross Colony, or from Peru, until 1840, when a contract was made with the Hudson's Bay Company under which the supplies were brought from the farms of the Nisqually or from Vancouver, in Oregon Territory.