[446] Crawfurd (Dictionary, p. 100) says that the cinnamon of Mindanao is not very strong or valuable; but the Official Handbook of Philippines (Manila, 1903) says (p. 114) that a cinnamon of stronger taste and fragrance is found in Zamboanga, Caraga, and the mountain districts of Misamis, than that of Ceylon, although containing a bitter element that depreciates its value, but which can be eliminated by cultivation. Many of the old writers describe the plant and its cultivation, one of the earliest being Varthema (Hakluyt Society edition), p. 191. Pigafetta’s etymology of the Malay word is correct.
[447] Mosto (p. 90) mistranscribes biguiday, and Stanley has (p. 121), bignaday. Perhaps it is the biniray, a boat resembling a large banca, or the binitan (see Pastells’s Colin, i, p. 25).
[448] MS. 5,650 reads: “seventeen men seemingly as bold and ready as any others whom we had seen in those districts.”
[449] Stanley says (p. 122) that this was attributed by a newspaper of 1874 to the Battas of Sumatra. Semper found the custom of eating the heart or liver of their slain enemies among the Manobos in eastern Mindanao (Mosto, p. 91, note 2). Tribes of Malayan origin living in northern Luzón are said to have ceremonial cannibalism (Official Handbook of Philippines, p. 158).
[450] MS. 5,650 reads: “twenty.”
[451] At this point in the Italian MS. (folio 50a) is found the chart of Ciboco, Biraban Batolach, Sarangani, and Candigar (q.v., p. 238). This chart is shown on folio 65a of MS. 5,650, preceded by the words: “Chart of the four islands of Ciboco, etc.”
[452] Albo (Navarrete, iv, p. 223) calls these two islands Sibuco and Virano Batolaque, the first of which Mosto (p. 91, note 3) conjectures to be Sibago, and the second (note 4), part of the southern portion of Mindanao. The first conjecture is probably correct if we take Albo’s word that the two ships turned to the southeast after passing the island Sibuco; and the fact that the main west coast east of Zamboanga is remarkably free of islands, lends color to the second.
[453] The islands of Balut and Sarangani, just south of the most southern point of Mindanao.
[454] MS. adds: “who are St. Elmo. St. Nicholas, and St. Clara.”
[455] It is just such acts as this bit of lawlessness, together with the unprovoked capture of inoffensive vessels, that show that the discipline of the ships had in great measure disappeared with the loss of Magalhães. Such acts amounted to nothing less than piracy.