Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/50

38 Judge Wickersham is also at the present time of the opinion that the wax came from the wreck of a Spanish vessel bound from the Philippines to Vera Cruz by way of the North Pacific Current (Kuro Shiwo), which, by the way, seems to have been the route universally taken by eastwardly bound vessels.

Dr. Joseph Schafer, professor of history at the University of Oregon, calls attention to two particularly interesting references in connection with the trade relationships existing between the Philippines and Mexico during early times. The first is from Blair and Robertson, "Philippine Islands," Vol. XV, p. 302:

""A Dutch writer of about 1600 in describing the Philippines says, 'They yield considerable quantities of honey and wax.'""

The second reference is to Morga, long a governor of the Philippines, sailing from there to Mexico in 1603. His writings are considered the most authoritative extant as regards the Philippines of the early period. In describing the trade from the Islands to Mexico he says:

"* * * these classes of merchandise (brought from Siam and other parts of the Orient) and in the productions of the Islands— namely, gold, cotton cloth, mendrinaque, and cakes of white and yellow wax—do the Spaniards effect their purchases, investments, and exports for Nueva Espana (Mexico).""

If anything more were needed to establish the hypothesis of a wrecked Spanish vessel it would be an authentic account of the wreck itself. Since the only account known is the one preserved in Indian tradition, we are denied such a crowning bit of evidence. We do have, however, the knowledge that exactly such wrecks did occur. In a reference kindly supplied by Professor Davidson, Venegas' History of California, Vol. II, p. 388, there is an account of the wreck of the San Augustin in Drake's Bay, 1595, where was left "great quantities of wax and chests of silk."