These vessels are crescent-shaped. Consequently, there is but a small keel, or little of it in the water, and that part which they rob from stern and bow is left out of the water--three or four brazas of keel or stem, all of which serves for its speed, and there is little to hold the boat back because of its narrowness. Therefore the helm is not managed like the Spanish helm, by the sweep from the end; accordingly, they use two rudders, one at one side and one at the other, where the flat part of the keel begins. One is usually employed for managing the boat, and both of them when it is stormy. With the second they keep the boat from getting unsteady, which would follow from its lightness, that rudder giving the boat more stiffness and serving as ballast. That is a precaution rendered necessary by its very lightness, the vessels that are lightest being those that require most care by being unsteady. In the middle they have a scaffold, four or six brazas long, which they call burulan or baileo. This consists of a floor raised above the rowers, and has its awning, which is called cayanes. Those awnings are made from the leaves of a small palm which grows in the water. That is the quarters for the fighters and the chiefs, for those vessels do not have any stern-cabin; it is, at the same time, the little castle from which they fight. All that structure finds its support and staunchness in what they call the cates, which are the buoys of which we have spoken. They are made of three or four bamboos as thick as the arm, and even larger, and reach from stem to stern. They are so adjusted that they drag through the water about one and one-half brazas away from the vessel. Consequently, they do not allow it to toss about, however violent the waves, but are the arms that keep the boat safe. They are used in general by all the craft of these islands, and by those of Burney and Maluco; for, since their ships are of no account without this security, they have no safety in the sea nor do the Indians dare to embark. From this circumstance Molina, who represented to the Council that buoys ought to be fastened to the ships so that they could sail or float with a support made of certain bags blown up and thrown alongside, derived his argument. He thought that that would assure the fleets, as they could not then sink, as he had experienced, even if they filled with water. It might have proved successful indeed, and in favor of his discourse, if some heavy sea raised by the hurricanes would not prove sufficient to burst the bags and drag them away from the sides; for hurricanes have more than sufficient violence to break up the stern and destroy the ship. That has been well known by actual experience here; for a few hours of a severe storm are sufficient to destroy the fastenings; and those ships would be wrecked daily if the voyages were not so short, and the vessels of so small burden that they can find shelter in any port. When necessity arises, the men in them