It is indeed most remarkable that by the concurrent testimony of all the Spanish navigators, there is not one port nor even a tolerable road as yet found out betwixt the Philippine Islands and the coast of California: so that from {223} the time the Manila ship first loses sight of land, she never lets go her anchor till she arrives on the coast of California, and very often not till she gets to its southermost extremity. As this voyage is rarely of less than six months' continuance, and the ship is deep laden with merchandize and crowded with people, it may appear wonderful how they can be supplied with a stock of fresh water for so long a time. The method of procuring it is indeed extremely singular, and deserves a very particular recital. It is well known to those who are acquainted with the Spanish customs in the South Seas, that their water is preserved on shipboard, not in casks but in earthen jars, which in some sort resemble the large oil jars we often see in Europe. When the Manila ship first puts to sea, she takes on board a much greater quantity of water than can be stowed between decks, and the jars which contain it are hung all about the shrouds and stays, so as to exhibit at a distance a very odd appearance. Though it is one convenience of their jars that they are much more manageable than casks, and are liable to no leekage, unless they are broken, yet it is sufficiently obvious that a six or even a three months' store of water could never be stowed in a ship so loaded by any management whatever; and therefore without some other supply this navigation could not be performed. A supply indeed they have, but the reliance upon it seems at first sight so extremely precarious that it is wonderful such numbers should risque the perishing by the most dreadful of all deaths on the expectation of so casual a relief. In short, their only method of recruiting their water is by the rains, which they meet with between the latitudes of 30° and 40° north, and which they are always prepared to catch. For this purpose they take to sea with them a great number of mats, which, whenever the rain descends, they range slopingly against the gunwale from one end of the ship to the other, their lower edges resting on a large split bamboe; whence all the water which falls on the mats drains into the bamboe, and by this, as a trough, is conveyed into a jar. And this method of furnishing themselves with water, however accidental and extraordinary it may at first sight appear, hath never been known to fail them, but it hath been common for them, when their voyage is a little longer than usual, to fill all their water jars several times over. {224}