The Galleon Nuestra Senora de Guia sailed from the Philippines for Mexico in June, 1712. She had long been anchored in Cavite, awaiting her cargo of oriental merchandise destined for transshipment to Spain. She expected to return to Manila with the usual cargo of silver pesos that made up the budget for the King’s government in the Philippines. The outward voyage to Acapulco, the port of discharge and landing in Mexico, was always long, tedious and dangerous, sometimes taking a full six months; but the return trip via Guam was more speedy. Following the customary precautions, the rigging of the Nuestra Senora de Guia was hanging full of bright red clay water jars, brim full before the ship put to sea. On account of water, the early part of the voyages, before the higher latitudes were reached, was a source of extreme anxiety to all on board; so dependent it was upon whimsical providence.
Under the vertical sun of Manila Bay, the paint and scroll work and the tar of the rigging blistered and burned; the master general fumed at the delay in sending him his orders, that he might hoist all sail and seek with all possible speed the breezier spaces of the high seas beyond Mariveles.
Weeks before the sailing, the promenades and little hostelries of Manila and Cavite were crowded with boisterous passengers, many of them returning to Spain to retire and live a life of ease and comfort upon the wealth they had been able to accumulate in the Philippines. The officials and ecclesiastics, however, kept to the seclusion and shade of their convents till the last possible moment – knowing that the old nao would perforce await their pleasure. When they were at last ready, a numerous retinue of legos and servants carried aboard their leathern trunks and personal provisions; but even then the galleon might linger for a favorable saint’s day or an omen of good fortune.
The cargoes of these old galleons were confined to those goods upon which a profit of 300 to 400 per cent might be made: they were silks, cottons, porcelains, lacquer, pepper, camboge and spices, and sometimes gold dust from the placer washings of Paracale and the Ilocos region. One galleon carried 200 carved walking sticks and 50,000 pairs of silk stockings. The cargo space on the galleons accommodated 1,500 boletas, packages measuring 18 cubic feet each; and from these came the gain upon which the officials, the monks, the confraternities and merchants lived – if not in affluence, at least with continual wranglings and avaricious disputes.
The traverse northward, into the region of cold and storms, resulted in a terrible mortality among the passengers as well as the crews, innured as they all were, either by long residence or nativity, to the tropic climate of the Philippines. Medical science being in its infancy, no one realized that pneumonia was the cause of so many untimely deaths. Burials at sea were the regular ceremonies of the voyages for centuries; the route of the galleons came to be known as the graveyard of Dona Maria de la Hara, although this lady was not known, or at least is not mentioned, by the friar historians of the period.
When water became scarce, as it often did before the rainy latitudes were reached, rice and garbanzones were cooked in the steam of salt water to sustain life aboard ship until the storms brought relief. Reaching latitudes of 30 to 40 degrees north, the naos encountered rains that never failed. Fresh supplies of water were obtained by spreading large mats in the rigging and using bamboo tubes to run the rain water into the jars and casks and wooden tanks.
The clothing of passengers and crews was often rotted by the constant rains and moist sunless weather. From such circumstances, many deaths resulted; the crew alone often numbered from 300 to 400 men; the quarters for passengers were always overcrowded.
Galleons constructed in the Philippines were built of thick heavy timbers, molave, yacal and kindred woods, and the deadweight made them unwieldy and sluggish. These rarely made Manila direct, on returning from Mexico, but landed their cargoes in Palapag, Lampon or Sorsogon. Not infrequently they piled up on the rocky and treacherous coasts of Mindoro and Cagayan. But a galleon that costs 50,000 pesos in Peru of Mexico, could be built in the Philippines for 8,000 pesos. The Mexican craft were the better sailers, the Philippine craft offered better defense from Dutch and English enemies, their timbers splintering far less from the artillery of fire.
In one period of fifteen years, eleven galleons were lost because of faulty seamanship; but the pious friars declared that the real cause of disaster was that the construction continued on Sunday and holy days and the laborers were often cheated of their pay. These numerous digressions illustrating the many quaint notions of the period are indulged in before getting to our story proper because of the perspective they offer for the picture of the times, the manners and customs of the people.
One galleon that arrived off the Philippines after a stormy voyage from Acapulco had to make port in Borongan, Samar. She landed her passengers and was held by two stout cables while her cargo of 100,000 Mexican pesos was being transferred to another vessel. The crew was still aboard, but in spite of that the cables parted and the ship drifted with the tide, grounding on the jagged coral reef at the mouth of the cove and breaking up – a total wreck, the silver going to the bottom with her. Native divers were able to recover the silver, but they gave up little of it to the Crown because they claimed it as their pay for building the galleon, which had been constructed in that very harbor. There were fulminations and threats enough, but the natives kept the treasure nevertheless.
The arrival of a galleon in Manila was made a public holiday. The general of the ship was escorted in a procession through the principal streets, the balconies of all the houses being gay with red and yellow hangings, the colors of Castille. Bells rang, te deums were chanted in all the churches, particularly at the Cathedral. Everyone rejoiced, for this single ship a year was all the link they had with the busy world beyond the infinite horizons.
When Nuestra Senora de Guia sailed from Cavite, she had of course her full complement of high ranking officers, from the general and the treasurer to the chaplain, Fray Anselmo, and the captain of the marines. But she was helpless against an enemy, as the galleons usually were. Her guns were not mounted. They were deep in the hold, for ballast. The galleons sailing in this hapless manner, when an enemy was sighted, the confusion and haste aboard were remarkable; but, incited to folly by avarice, and desperate from being limited by royal decree to one ship a year, of specified cargo capacity, on each voyage the same practice was repeated and numerous galleons were taken because they carried their cannons as ballast and not for use.
Once clear of Manila bay, the Nuestra Senora de Guia picked up the vendavels, or monsoon winds. Sailing up the western coast of Luzon, she rounded the rocky headland of Bojeador, sheeted home all her great sails and bowled away on the long voyage to Acapulco.
All that was to be seen on the vast expanse of the deep were schools of flying fish and lumbering up-ending dolphins. The lonely isle of Pajaros was passed, with its teeming bird life, and then once more they faced the blue and shimmering ocean, until they neared Lower California. By their rude instruments they could reckon latitude accurately enough for their purposes, but how to reckon longitude was still unknown; they only knew they were nearing California by the kelp floating on the waves. They then turned southward, for the protecting fortress of San Diego, in Acapulco cove. They fortunately did not run afoul of any English privateers, those hawks of the sea who were wont to lie in wait for the cumbersome galleons in the vicinity of the home port.
Even so early in history, the Jesuits were faithful in their service to mariners. At their convents on the California coast, if they had word of or had sighted privateers, they kept great fires burning on the peak of some highland, as a warning to the galleons to hove to until the danger of capture had passed.
Life on the Nuestra Senora de Guia was tedious in extreme. The victuals were boiled salt provisions mixed liberally with garbanzos and judias. Among the wearied passengers those lucky enough to have garnered a competence in the Philippines yarned away the hours; and aside from this monotonous droning there were the matins and masses of Fray Anselmo.
Then occurred an incident to enliven everyone. Some three weeks after leaving Manila, after Sunday mass had been celebrated the lookout called down that he saw a boat in the distance. Instantly everything was excitement; passengers and crew crowded the rail, the tall poop and even the rigging, to catch sight of the boat. But it was some time before many could make it out, for it was only a small boat, tossing far out on the swells. Slowly the wind drove the Nuestra Senora de Guia onward, until she came abreast of the tiny craft, when her huge sails were closehauled and her unwieldy hulk came to a stop, curtsying to the great seas.
With many gesticulations and orders emphasized by the oaths familiar to the mariners of those days, the shallop was launched and rowed towards the strange craft. No movement came from it or its occupants; no eager hale came over the waves, no signal went aloft. The transition from the deck of a great ship in mid ocean to a row boat hovering at the water line must be experienced to be appreciated. Surges strong enough to lift the largest liner alternately rise and melt away in the illimitable distance. The utter desolation of sea and sky arouses an unpleasant subconsciousness that is hard to define. It is fear, of course, fear of the unknown; it resembles the trepidation of the soul slipping unwillingly into the realm of another world, conceived as a world of loneliness and unbounded solitude.
In such moments man recognizers the nearness of his Creator.
Under the urge of the spoon-bladed oars the shallop made its approach to the craft the lookout had sighted. A close view of the curiously carved stem showed it to be of some outlandish workmanship unknown to the Spaniards. A carved bamboo frame was covered with costly shawls, but the most wonderful detail of all was the sole occupant of the dainty vessel. Lying on a heap of oriental cushions, exquisitely wrought, was a girl, scarcely a woman yet. She was lifeless, still, most beautiful in death; the attitude of the body, the perfect composure of the features, indicated that death must have come while the girl slept, with no dreadful premonitions or excruciating pain. Her cloak was rich and beautiful, of the most costly material. Around the delicate young throat was a necklace of the rarest gems, diamonds the envy of Golconda. The facets caught every sparkle of light and dazzled the mariners’ vision as they drew alongside the wave-borne mausoleum.
There was no name, no clue whatsoever to the identity of the little body sailing thus alone into the portals of eternity.
The Spanish mariners were awed. How in the name of all that was miraculous had this thing occurred? Had a ship gone down, or been destroyed by fire? Had vengeance cast this girl adrift, or had she taken this desperate means to escape some peril, or a fate loathsome to a lovelorn heart? Whether she had expired from a grief or loneliness or terror had to be conjectured; there was absolutely nothing upon which to base a definite assumption, save that her eyes had closed in peace, the soul at least had been unafraid when the last moment came. Provisions, delicate viands and water were in the craft, which could not have been launched many days before, as the victuals were still fresh.
Questions therefore remained unanswered. In that part of the Pacific ships were free, there were no regular lanes of traffic as there are today. The ocean was a lonely waste, infrequently traversed. Who the girl was, none could surmise; where she came from, none knew; it was only another of the mysteries of the ocean, clear enough if the facts were known but utterly baffling in the lack of them. The sailors saw an actual fact: they believed, and they could only wonder as to the rest – what might have been.
The lovely body with its rich habiliments was put upon the galleon and laid out on the deck. The dainty gold crucifix and a jeweled rosary clasped in a small white hand were proof enough to Fray Anselmo, the chronicler of the tale, that the girl had been a Christian. Christian rites were given. The few women aboard gathered around the frail little form on the great galleon’s crowded deck; and they wept at such a tragedy, come to one so young and more than passing fair. Stronger hearts were touched as well: the body was committed to the deep with every solemn ceremony for such occasions: from the hard-bitten crew many aves were intoned for the rest of the soul of one of God’s unfortunates.
And then the Nuestra Senora de Guia spread her great sails to the breeze once more and lumbered on her way to the distant coast of California; and against the sides of her laden hulk the ocean beat the rhythm of the song that has cradled the infancy of the world. The long tropic day flamed into the sunset; the estrella vespertina, the evening star, gleamed softly in the western heavens; and when twilight sped quickly by, a gentle moon looked kindly down upon an empty row-boat tossing on the dark surface of the turgid sea; and in the gloomier depths below a spirit rested, to awaken no more until the day of judgment. One hopes that the tenderest and most pleading of Gabriel’s notes will call such young loveliness from its briny sepulcher.
In due course, a few months later the Nuestra Senora de Guia raised the twin peaks of Acapulco harbor, then a busy mart, but now a crumbling and deserted town. The general of the nao and Fray Anselmo reported the incident to the castellan of Fort San Diego, who carefully noted it in his books. The gray monastery hummed with conjecture, all futile. On muleback the passengers departed from Acapulco for Chilpanzingo and Mexico, their long long journey to Spain hardly more than well begun. The mariners wasted their pay about the gaming tables of the town, and some on more delectable pleasures. When they were penniless and another galleon was about to put out for Manila, they signed on for another return trip. At his own leisure, Fray Anselmo made his chronicle a mystery never revealed, a tragic secret of the mid-Pacific waters.
