134 
PORTER’S JOURNAL, 
forming the deck, and has, as a substitute for a caboose, a small 
quantity of dirt thrown on the logs that project beyond the sides 
forward. The crews appear equally as miserable in their ap¬ 
pearance as the machine they navigate on, and it excited no little 
surprize in our minds when we were informed, that the naviga¬ 
tion from Guyaquil to Lima, a distance of about 600 miles, against 
a constant head wind, and frequently rapid current, should be very 
common with those rafts. This passage takes them two months ; 
and there can be no stronger proof of the mildness of this ocean, 
so justly, in this part, deserving the name of the Pacific, than the 
fact that the loss of those vessels, frail as they are, is very un¬ 
common ; nor can there be a more convincing instance of the 
unenlightened state of the people of this part of the world, than 
that they should continue the use of such barbarous vessels, when 
the fastest sailing vessels are so necessary, and where materials 
for building them are so abundant, and where the state of the 
climate will admit of vessels of such construction as best suits 
their purpose, without any apprehensions of danger from the vio¬ 
lence of the sea : but so far are they behind hand in civilization 
and intelligence with the rest of the world, that the appearance 
of all the vessels built on the Spanish coast of the Pacific (except 
the few built at Guyaquil) bespeaks the extreme ignorance of the 
constructor as well as the navigator. There are established at 
Guyaquil some European constructors, who have built large ves¬ 
sels, that have been justly admired in Europe and other parts of 
the world : but nothing, except the catamarans, can be more 
clumsy in their appearance, and apparently more unsuitable 
to the navigation of this ocean, than the miserable vessels em¬ 
ployed in the coasting trade of Peru. 
The two catamarans above mentioned had looked into the har¬ 
bour of Payta, and were consequently enabled to give me all the 
intelligence I required. They informed me there were no ves¬ 
sels lying there, except two or three small coasting vessels; and as 
there was now no necessity for shewing ourselves before that place, 
I shaped my course for the Gailapagos Islands, directing the Bar¬ 
clay to steer W.N.W. by compass, in order that we might fall in 
with the latitude to the eastward of them, intimating to her com- 
