They Manage These
Boats With A Paddle Instead Of A Rudder, And Use A Square Sail, And They
Sail With Incredible Swiftness, Twenty Or Even Twenty-Four Miles In An
Hoar.
One side of these boats is quite flat and upright like a wall from
end to end, but the other side is rounded and full-bellied like other
vessels.
Along this side, parallel with the boat, at the distance of six
or seven feet, a log of light wood, a foot and a half wide, and sharp at
both ends, is fastened by means of two bamboos eight or ten feet long,
projecting from each end of the main boat, and this log prevents the
boat from oversetting. The English call this an out-lier, or out-rigger,
and the Dutch Oytlager. The air of this island is accounted
exceedingly healthy, except in the wet season between June and October.
The Indians inhabit small villages on the west side of this island near
the shore, and have priests among them to instruct them in the Christian
religion. By means of a civil letter from Captain Swan to the Spanish
governor, accompanied by some presents, we obtained a good supply of
hogs, cocoa-nuts, rice, biscuits, and other refreshments, together with
fifty pounds of Manilla tobacco.
Learning from one of the friars that the island of Mindanao, inhabited
by Mahometans, abounded in provisions, we set sail from Guam on the 2d
June with a strong E. wind, and arrived on the 21st at the Isle of St
John, one of the Philippines.
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