1564.] IMPROVEMENTS IN THE NAVIGATION OF THE PACIFIC. 67 



where the winds blow constantly from eastern points. Three of 

 Legazpi's vessels, however, under the direction of Andres de 

 Urdaneta, a friar, who had in early life accompanied Magellan in 

 his expedition, and had subsequently acquired great reputation as 

 a navigator, by taking a northward course from the Philippine 

 Islands, entered a region of variable winds, near the 40th parallel 

 of latitude, and were thus enabled to reach the coast of California, 

 along which the prevailing north-westers carried them speedily to 

 Mexico. 



The Spaniards thus gained, what they had so long coveted, a 

 position in the East Indies ; and the practicability of communicating, 

 by way of the Pacific, between Asia and America, was placed 

 beyond a doubt. At the same time, also, Juan Fernandes discov- 

 ered the mode of navigating between places on the west coast of 

 South America, by standing out obliquely to a distance from the 

 continent; and other improvements of a similar kind having been 

 moreover introduced, the Spanish commerce on the Pacific soon 

 became important. Large ships, called galleons, sailed annually 

 from Acapulco to Manilla, in the Philippine Islands, and to Macao, 

 in China, laden with precious metals and European merchandise, in 

 return for which they brought back silks, spices, and porcelain, for 

 consumption in America, or for transportation over the Atlantic to 

 Europe ; while an extensive trade in articles equally valuable was 

 carried on between Panama and the various ports of Peru and 

 Chili. These voyages on the Pacific were usually long, but com- 

 paratively safe, at least so far as regards exemption from injury by 

 winds and waves, though the crews of the vessels often suffered 

 dreadfully from scurvy occasioned by filth and want of good water 

 and provisions ; * and, as that ocean remained for some years undis- 

 turbed by the presence of enemies of Spain, little care or cost was 

 bestowed upon the defence, either of the vessels or of the towns on 

 the coasts. 



The galleons, proceeding from Mexico to India, were wafted, by 

 the invariable easterly or trade winds, directly across the ocean, in 

 about three months ; in the return voyage, they often occupied 

 more than double that time, and they always made the west coast 

 of California, the principal points on which thus became tolerably 

 well known before the end of the sixteenth century. Accounts of 



For accounts of the miseries of a voyage from Manilla to Acapulco, in 1697, see 

 Gemelli Carreri's narrative, in the fourth volume of Churchill's collection of voyages, 

 which, if not true, is very like truth. 



