much quicker and safer passage, and would have enabled
him to reach the rainy zone more rapidly. To effect the last, indeed,
was a matter of the greatest importance to him, for his vessel,
overladen [Water-supply crowded out by cargo.] with merchandise,
had but little room crowded out for water; and although he had
a crew of from four hundred to six hundred hands to provide for,
he was instructed to depend upon the rain he caught on the voyage;
for which purpose, the galleon was provided with suitable mats and
bamboo pails. [33]

[Length of voyage.] Voyages in these low latitudes were, owing to the
inconstancy of the winds, extremely troublesome, and often lasted five
months and upwards. The fear of exposing the costly, cumbrous vessel
to the powerful and sometimes stormy winds of the higher latitudes,
appears to have been the cause of these sailing orders.

[California landfall.] As soon as the galleon had passed the great
Sargasso shoal, it took a southerly course, and touched at the
southern point of the Californian peninsula (San Lucas), where news
and provisions awaited it. [34] In their earlier voyages, however,
they must have sailed much further to the north, somewhere in the
neighborhood of Cape Mendocino, and have been driven southward in sight
of the coast; for Vizcaino, in the voyage of discovery he undertook
in 1603, from Mexico to California, found the principal mountains and
capes, although no European had ever set his foot upon them, already
christened by the galleons, to which they had served as landmarks.
[35]

[Speedy return voyage.] The return voyage to the Philippines was an
easy one, and only occupied from forty to sixty days. [36] The galleon
left Acapulco in February or March, sailed southwards till it fell in
with the trade wind (generally in from 10 deg. to 11 deg. of north latitude),
which carried it easily to the Ladrone Islands, and thence reached
Manila by way of Samar. [37]

[Galleon's size and armament.] A galleon was usually of from twelve
hundred to fifteen hundred tons burden, and carried fifty or sixty
guns. The latter, however, were pretty generally banished to the
hold during the eastward voyage. When the ship's bows were turned
towards home, and there was no longer any press of space, the guns
were remounted.

[Capture of "Santa Anna".] San Augustin says of the Santa Anna, which
Thomas Candish captured and burnt in 1586 off the Californian coast:
"Our people sailed so carel