They entered the bay of Guasco[77] on the 1st April, where they remained till the 7th. The 11th they came into a large bay, named Moro Gorch, in lat. 18° 30' S. ten miles from which is Moro Moreno, from which the shore runs to Arica, and all this coast, up to the hill of St Francis, is very much subject to south winds, though the adjoining seas have the winds variable and uncertain. On the 20th the whole air was darkened by an Arenal which is a cloud of dust, and so thick that one cannot see a stone's throw. These are raised by the wind from the adjoining shore, and are very common in these parts. The 25th they were within view of the famous city of Lima in Peru. At this time they learnt the value of the treasure of which the Spaniards had deprived them, in the ships they took on the coast of Chili. Nicholas Peterson, the captain of one of these prizes, acquainted Van Noort that he had been informed by a negro of a great quantity of gold having been on board the ship, as he believed to the amount of three tons, having helped to carry a great part of it on board. On this information the admiral closely examined the Spanish pilot, who at first denied all knowledge of any gold; but another negro having corroborated the information, with some farther circumstances, the pilot at last owned that they had on board fifty-two chests, each containing four arobas of gold, and besides these 500 bars of the same metal, weighing from eight to ten and twelve pounds each; all of which, together with what private stock belonged to any of the company, the captain had ordered to be thrown overboard in the night, when first chased, amounting in the whole to about 10,200 pounds weight of gold; and, from its fineness, worth about two million pieces of eight, or Spanish silver dollars. Upon this the admiral ordered the ship and all the prisoners to be searched, but there was only found a single pound of gold dust, tied up in a rag, in the breeches pocket of the Spanish pilot. The prisoners owned that all this gold was brought from the island of St Mary, from mines discovered only three years before; and that there were not more than three or four Spaniards on that island, and about 200 Indians, only armed with bows and arrows.
[Footnote 77: Perhaps Huasco in lat. 28° 27' S. or it may possibly have been Guacho, in 25° 50' S.--E.]
The 5th September they came in sight of the Ladrones, and came on the 16th to Guam, one of these an island of about twenty Dutch miles in extent, and yielding fish, cocoa-nuts, bananas, and sugar canes, all of which the natives brought to the ships in a great number of canoes. Sometimes they met 200 of these canoes at one time, with four or five men in each, bawling out hiero, hiero, meaning iron; and often in their eagerness they run their canoes against the ships, overturning them and losing all their commodities. These islanders were a sly subtle people, and honest with good looking after; for otherwise, they would sell a basket of cocoa-nut shells covered over with a small quantity of rice, as if full of rice. They would also snatch a sword from its scabbard, and plunge instantly into the water, where they dived like so many ducks; and the women were as roguish as the men, stealing as impudently, and diving as expertly to carry off their prizes.
The 17th of September they sailed for the Philippines; and on the 20th they met with ice, though then only in the latitude of 3° N.[78] On the 16th October they came to Bayla bay, in a very fertile land, at which place they procured abundance of all kinds of necessaries for their ships, by pretending to be Spaniards. The Spaniards, who are lords here, make the Indians pay an annual capitation tax, to the value of ten single rials for every one above twenty years of age. The natives of these islands are mostly naked, having their skins marked with figures so deeply impressed, [tatooed] that they never wear out. Being discovered to be Dutch, but not till they had gained their ends, they sailed for the Straits of Manilla, all the coasts near which appeared waste, barren, and rocky. Here a sudden squall of wind from the S.E. carried away some of their masts and sails, being more furious than any they had hitherto experienced during the voyage. The 23d some of the people went ashore, where they eat palmitoes and drank water so greedily, that they were afterwards seized with the dysentery. The 24th they entered the straits, sailing past an island in the middle, and came in the evening past the island of Capul, seven miles within the straits, near which they found whirlpools, where the sea was of an unfathomable depth, so far as they could discover.
[Footnote 78: This surely is an error for 18°, Guam being in lat. 18° 20' N. yet even here, the fact of meeting ice so far within the tropic is sufficiently singular.--E.]
They now crowded sail for Manilla, which is eighty miles from Capul, but wanted both a good wind to carry them, and good maps and a skilful pilot to direct them to that place. The 7th November they took a junk from China, laden with provisions for Manilla. The master of this junk told them there were then at Manilla two great ships, that come every year from New Spain, and a Dutch ship also which had been brought from Malacca. He said also that the town of Manilla was walled round, having two forts for protecting the ships, as there was a vast trade to that place from China, not less than 400 junks coming every year from Chincheo, with silk and other valuable commodities, between Easter and December. There were also two ships expected shortly from Japan, laden with iron and other metals, and provisions. The 15th they took two barks, laden with hens and hogs, being part of the tribute to the Spaniards, but became food to the Dutch, who gave them a few bolts of linen in return.
They passed the islands of Bankingle and Mindoro, right over against which is the island of Lou-bou. at the distance of two miles, and between both is another small island, beside which there is a safe passage for ships. The island of Luzon is larger than England and Scotland,[79] and has a numerous cluster of small islands round about it; yet is more beholden to trade for its riches, than to the goodness of its soil. While at anchor, in 15° N. waiting for the ships said to be coming from Japan, Van Noort took one of them on the 1st December, being a vessel of fifty tons, which had been twenty-five days on her voyage. Her form was very strange, her forepart being like a chimney, and her furniture corresponding to her shape; as her sails were made of reeds, her anchors of wood, and her cables of straw. Her Japanese mariners had their heads all close shaven, except one tuft left long behind, which is the general custom of that country. The 9th, they took two barks, one laden with cocoa wine and arrack, and the other with hens and rice.
[Footnote 79: Luzon is certainly a large island, but by no means such as represented in the text.--E.]
The 14th of December they met the two Spanish ships returning from Manilla to New Spain, on which a very sharp engagement took place. Overpowered by numbers, the Dutch in the ship of Van Noort were reduced to the utmost extremity, being at one time boarded by the Spaniards, and almost utterly conquered; when Van Noort, seeing all was lost without a most resolute exertion, threatened to blow up his ship, unless his men fought better and beat off the Spaniards. On this, the Dutch crew fought with such desperate resolution, that they cleared their own ship, and boarded the Spanish admiral, which at last they sunk outright. In this action the Dutch admiral had five men slain, and twenty-six wounded, the whole company being now reduced to thirty-five men. But several hundreds of the Spaniards perished, partly slain in the fight, and partly drowned or knocked in the head after the battle was over. But the Dutch lost their pinnace, which was taken by the Spanish vice-admiral; and this was not wonderful, considering that she had only twenty-five men to fight against five hundred Spaniards and Indians.
After this action, Van Noort made sail for the island of Borneo, the chief town of which island is in lat. 5° N. while Manilla, the capital of Luçon, is in lat. 15° N. On the way to Borneo, they passed the island of Bolutam, [Palawan or Paragua,] which is 180 miles in length from N.E. to S.W. They came to Borneo on the 26th December, putting into a great bay, three miles in compass, where there was good anchorage, and abundance of fish in a neighbouring river, and the fishermen always ready to barter their fish for linen. Van Noort sent a message to the king, desiring leave to trade; but suspecting them to be Spaniards, he would come to no terms till his officers had examined them with the utmost attention, after which they had trade for pepper with a people called Pattannees, of Chinese origin. Both these and the native Borneans were fond of Chinese cotton cloth, but the linen from Holland was a mere drug, and quite unsaleable. In the mean time, the Borneans laid a plot to surprise the ship; for which purpose, on the 1st January, 1601, they came with at least an hundred praws full of men, pretending to have brought presents from the king, and would have come on board the ship; but the Dutch, suspecting their treachery, commanded them to keep at a distance from the ship, or they would be obliged to make them do so with their shot, on which the Borneans desisted.