voyage from Lima to Panama. If, when near Panama, they happen to meet a
north-west wind, as sometimes happens, they must drive before it till it
changes, merely using their best endeavours to avoid the shore, for they
will never sink at sea. Such vessels carry sixty or seventy tons of
merchandise, as wine, oil, flour, sugar, Quito cloth, soap, dressed
goats skins, &c. They are navigated by three or four men only; who, on
their arrival at Panama, sell both the goods and vessel at that place,
as they cannot go back again with them against the trade-wind. The
smaller fishing barks of this construction are much easier managed.
These go out to sea at night with the land-wind, and return to the shore
in the day with the sea-breeze; and such small _barco longos_ are used
in many parts of America, and in some places in the East Indies. On the
coast of Coromandel they use only one log, or sometimes two, made of
light wood, managed by one man, without sail or rudder, who steers the
log with a paddle, sitting with his legs in the water.[163]

[Footnote 163: On the coast of Coromandel these small rafts are named
_Catamarans_, and are employed for carrying letters or messages between
the shore and the ships, through the tremendous surf which continually
breaks on that coast.--E.]

The next town to Payta of any consequence is _Piura_, thirty miles from
Payta, seated in a valley on a river of the same name, which discharges
its waters into the bay of _Chirapee_ [or Sechura.] in lat. 5° 32' S.
This bay is seldom visited by ships of burden, being full of shoals; but
the harbour of Payta is one of the best on the coast of Peru, being
sheltered on the S.W. by a point of land, which renders the bay smooth
and the anchorage safe, in from six to twenty fathoms on clear sand.
Most ships navigating this coast, whether bound north or south, touch at
this port for fresh water, which is brought to them from _Colon_ at a