[Footnote 191: This vague description may now safely be changed to the size of a three-penny, or even four-penny loaf--E.]
On the 31st May we came to anchor near the middle of the west side of this isle, a mile from shore, as there is no anchoring on its east side on account of the trade-winds, which force the waves with great violence against that side. The natives are of a copper-colour, strong-limbed, with long black hair, small eyes, high noses, thick lips, white teeth, and stern countenances, yet were very affable to us. They are very ingenious in building a certain kind of boats, called proas, used all over the East Indies. These are about twenty-six or twenty-eight feet long, and five or six feet high from the keel, which is made of the trunk of a tree like a canoe, sharp at both ends. They manage these boats with a paddle instead of a rudder, and use a square sail, and they sail with incredible swiftness, twenty or even twenty-four miles in an hoar. One side of these boats is quite flat and upright like a wall from end to end, but the other side is rounded and full-bellied like other vessels. Along this side, parallel with the boat, at the distance of six or seven feet, a log of light wood, a foot and a half wide, and sharp at both ends, is fastened by means of two bamboos eight or ten feet long, projecting from each end of the main boat, and this log prevents the boat from oversetting. The English call this an out-lier, or out-rigger, and the Dutch Oytlager. The air of this island is accounted exceedingly healthy, except in the wet season between June and October. The Indians inhabit small villages on the west side of this island near the shore, and have priests among them to instruct them in the Christian religion. By means of a civil letter from Captain Swan to the Spanish governor, accompanied by some presents, we obtained a good supply of hogs, cocoa-nuts, rice, biscuits, and other refreshments, together with fifty pounds of Manilla tobacco.
Learning from one of the friars that the island of Mindanao, inhabited by Mahometans, abounded in provisions, we set sail from Guam on the 2d June with a strong E. wind, and arrived on the 21st at the Isle of St John, one of the Philippines. These are a range of large islands reaching from about the latitude of 5° to about 19° N. and from long. 120° to 126° 30' E. The principal island of the group is Luzon, or Luçonia, in which Magellan was slain by a poisoned arrow, and which is now entirely subject to the Spaniards. Their capital city of Manilla is in this island, being a large town and sea-port, seated at the south-west end, opposite to the island of Mindora, and is a place of great strength and much trade, especially occasioned by the Acapulco ships, which procure here vast quantities of India commodities, brought hither by the Chinese and Portuguese, and sometimes also by stealth by the English from fort St George or Madras; for the Spaniards allow of no regular trade here to the English and Dutch, lest they should discover their weakness, and the riches of these islands, which abound in gold. To the south of Luzon there are twelve or fourteen large islands, besides a great number of small isles, all inhabited by, or subject to, the Spaniards. But the two most southerly, Mindanao and St John, are not subjected by the Spaniards.
The Island of St John, or San Juan, is about the lat. of 9° N. on the east side of Mindanao, and about four leagues from that island, being about thirty-eight leagues in length from N.N.W. to S.S.E. and about twenty-four leagues broad in the middle, having a very rich and fertile soil. Mindanao, next to Luzon, is the largest of the Philippines, being sixty leagues long by forty or fifty leagues broad. Its southern end is in lat. 5° 30' N. the N.W. extremity reaching to 9° 40' N. The soil is generally fertile, and its stony hills produce many kinds of trees, most of which are unknown to Europeans. The vallies are supplied with brooks and rivulets, and stored with various sorts of ever-green trees, and with rice, water-melons, plantains, bananas, guavas, nutmegs, cloves, betel-nuts, durians, jacks, or jackas, cocoa-nuts, oranges, &c.; but, above all, by a species of tree called libby by the natives, which produces sago, and grows in groves several miles in length. The poorer people feed on sago instead of bread for several months of the year. This tree resembles the cabbage-tree, having a strong bark and hard wood, the heart of which is full of a white pith, like that of the elder. They cut down the tree and split it open, taking out the pith, which they stamp or beat well in a mortar, after which, putting it into a cloth, and pouring in water, they stir it well, till the water carries all the farinaceous substance through the cloth into a trough. After the farinaceous matter has settled to the bottom, the water is poured off, and the sago is baked into cakes, which they use as bread. The sago, which is carried from hence to other parts of the East Indies, is dried into small grains, and is used with milk of almonds as a remedy against fluxes, being of an astringent quality.
The other fruits of this island, being well known or described by various authors, need not be here mentioned. The nutmegs here are very large and good, but the natives do not care for propagating them, being afraid lest the Dutch, who monopolize the spice islands, should be induced to pay them a hostile visit. This island also produces abundance of animals, both wild and tame, as horses, cows, buffaloes, goats, wild hogs, deer, monkeys, and others; also guanas, lizards, snakes, scorpions, and centipeds. These last are not thicker than a goose-quill, but five inches long, and they sting fiercer even than scorpions. Of tame fowl, they have only ducks and hens; but have plenty of wild birds, as pigeons, parrots, parrakeets, turtle-doves, bats as large as our kites, and an infinite number and variety of small birds. Their wild hogs feed in the woods in prodigious herds, and have thick knobs growing over their eyes. There are mountains in the interior of this island, which afford considerable quantities of gold. Their chief fish are bonitos, snooks, cavallies, breams, and mullets; and they have abundance of sea-tortoises; and the island has many harbours, creeks, and rivers.
Considering the situation of this island, so near the Line, its climate is by no means excessively hot, especially near the sea, where the sea-breeze cools the air by day and the land-breeze at night. The wind blows from the east between October and May, and then blows from the west till October. The west wind produces the wet season, which is heaviest in July and August, and, gradually lessening in September, ceases in October, when the east wind brings fair weather, which lasts till May. The inhabitants of this island, though all resembling each other in colour and stature, and all Mahometans, differ considerably in language and government. The mountaineers, or Hillanoons, who inhabit the interior, and are masters of the gold-mines, are also rich in bees-wax, both of which they exchange with the Mindanayans on the coast for foreign commodities. The Sologus inhabit the N.W. end of the island, and traffic with the inhabitants of Manilla and some other adjacent islands, but not with the Mindanayans. The Alfoores were formerly under the same government with the Mindanayans, but were separated from them by falling to the share of the younger children of the sultan of Mindanao, who has of late laid claim to their allegiance.
The Mindanayans, properly so called, are of low stature, with small limbs, little heads, straight bodies, small eyes short noses, wide mouths, thin red lips, and sound black teeth, having black lank hair, and tawny complexions, but rather brighter than other Indians. They are ingenious and nimble, much addicted to indolence, obliging to strangers, but implacable when once disobliged. They wear turbans on their heads, formed of a cloth tied once round, the ends of which hang down, and are ornamented with lace or fringe. They also wear breeches, over which they have a kind of frocks, but have neither shoes nor stockings. The women tie their long black hair in a knot, which hangs down behind, being smaller featured than the men, with very small feet. Their garments consist of a piece of cloth sewed together at both ends, forming a kind of petticoat, with a frock reaching a little below the waist. They covet the acquaintance of white men, and are very free with them, as far as they have liberty. When any strangers arrive at the city of Mindanao, the men come aboard and invite them to their houses, where they immediately ask if any of them wish to have a pagally, or female friend, which they must accept, and return the favour by some small present, which is repeated from time to time, in return for which they eat, drink, and sleep, in their friend's house.
The capital is named Mindanao, like the island, being on the south-west side, two miles from the sea, on the bank of a small river, in lat. 7° N. The houses are built on posts, fourteen to twenty feet high, consisting only of one floor, but divided in many rooms by partitions. The house or palace of the sultan rests on 150 great posts, being much higher than any of the others, and had great broad stairs leading up to it from the ground. In the hall there were twenty pieces of iron cannon upon field carriages, and the general and other great men have also some cannon in their houses. The floors are generally well covered with mats, and they have no chairs, but usually sit cross-legged. Their ordinary food is rice, sago, and some small fish; but the better people use buffaloe beef, and fowl, with a great deal of rice, every one using their fingers, as they have no spoons. The inhabitants of the city of Mindanao speak both the Mindanayan and Malay languages, and their prayers are in Arabic, in which also they retain some Turkish words. Some of the old people of both sexes can speak Spanish, as the Spaniards had formerly several forts in the island, and had assuredly reduced the whole if they had not been afraid of an attack from the Chinese at Manilla, on which account they withdrew their troops from Mindanao, when the father of the present sultan laid hold of the opportunity to gain possession of their forts, and to expel them from the island. At present they are most in fear of the Dutch, for which reason they have often invited the English to make a settlement among them, believing them not so ready to encroach as either of the other nations.
The chief trades in this city are goldsmiths, blacksmiths, carpenters, and shipwrights, for they build good ships both for war and trade. Their chief commodities for export are gold, bees-wax, and tobacco; the two first being purchased from the mountaineers, and the last grows in all parts of the island in great plenty. They exchange these commodities for calicoes, muslins, and China silks. The Mindanao tobacco is reckoned as good as that of Manilla, and yet ten or twelve pounds of it may be bought for a rial, or the eighth part of a dollar. The natives are generally afflicted with a dry itchy scurf all over their bodies, and by scratching, the skin peels off in small white flakes, like the scales of small fish, leaving broad white spots all over their bodies; but they did not seem to make any great account of this disease, which is not infectious. They are also troubled with small-pox; but their most common diseases are fevers, agues, fluxes, and violent griping pains in their bowels. They have many wives, but I could not learn their marriage ceremonies.
They are governed by a sultan, who has no great revenue, yet is so absolute that he even commands the private purse of every one at his pleasure. The reigning sultan was between fifty and sixty years old, and had twenty-nine concubines besides his wife or sultana. When he goes abroad he is carried in a couch on the shoulders of four men, and is attended by a guard of eight or ten men. His brother, named Rajah Laut, a shrewd person of good conversation, is both chief minister and general, and both speaks and writes Spanish very readily. In war they use swords and lances, and every one, from the highest to the lowest, constantly wears a criss or dagger, much like a bayonet. They never fight any pitched battles, but construct small wooden forts defended by guns, whence the adverse parties endeavour to surprise each other in small parties, and never give or take quarter.