The voyage of the fathers from Mexico to the Philippines
[The three brethren destined for China set sail from the port of
Acapulco for Macan, in a vessel called the "San Martin." The other
fifteen religious began their voyage on the Sunday called Quasimodo,
the Sunday after Easter, April 6, in the year 1587. It was very late
in the year, so that there was danger of storms; for the time of
the vendabals had come--stormy and contrary winds, which are feared
greatly by the best pilots. They had the misfortune to lose their
ship-stores by fire, and were obliged to live on beans and chick-peas
(garbanzos) for all the rest of the voyage, which lasted three months
and a half. But a much more severe affliction was the narrowness of
their quarters in the ship; for two factions broke out among the crew,
one party fortifying itself in the forecastle, the other in the poop;
and they were about to give battle to each other, as if the one party
had been Moors and the other Christians. Fortunately, the fathers
succeeded in reconciling them. The carelessness of the navigators
almost caused the ship to be lost on one occasion; on another, the
vessel was almost lost on some islands inhabited by cannibals. On
the eve of St. Magdalen's day they reached port; and they took this
saint to be patron of that province.]