And as there may be hence some reason to conclude that {315} there is a chain of islands spreading themselves southward towards the unknown boundaries of the Pacific Ocean of which the Ladrones are only a part, so it appears that the same chain is extended from the northward of the Ladrones to Japan: whence in this light the Ladrones will be only one small portion of a range of islands reaching from Japan perhaps to the unknown southern continent. After this short account of these places, I shall now return to the prosecution of our voyage. {316} CHAPTER VI FROM TINIAN TO MACAO On the 21st of October, in the evening, we took our leave of the Island of Tinian, steering the proper course for Macao in China. The eastern monsoon was now, we reckoned, fairly settled; and we had a constant gale blowing right astern, so that we generally ran from forty to fifty leagues a day. But we had a large hollow sea pursuing us, which occasioned the ship to labour much; whence our leak was augmented, and we received great damage in our rigging, which by this time was grown very rotten. However, our people were now happily in full health, so that there were no complaints of fatigue, but all went through their attendance on the pumps, and every other duty of the ship, with ease and chearfulness. Before we left Tinian we swept for our best and small bower, and employed the Indians to dive in search of them; but all to no purpose. Hence, except our prize anchors, which were stowed in the hold, and were too light to be depended on, we had only our sheet-anchor left: and that being obviously much too heavy for a coasting-anchor, we were under great concern how we should manage on the coast of China, where we were entire strangers, and where we should doubtless be frequently under the necessity of coming to an anchor. But we at length removed the difficulty by fixing two of our largest prize anchors into one stock and placing between their shanks two guns, four pounders. This we intended to serve as a best bower: and a third prize anchor being in like manner joined to our stream-anchor, with guns between them, made us a small bower; so that, besides our sheet-anchor, we had again two others at our bows, one of which weighed 3900, and the other 2900 pounds.