[260] A marine fish (Sparus auratus), thus named because it has spots of golden-yellow color.
[261] A chart of the Indian Ocean, by L. S. de la Rochette (pub. London, 1803, by W. Faden, geographer to the king) shows three volcanoes in about 25° north latitude, and but a few degrees north of the Ladrones. One of them is called "La Desconocida, or Third Volcano," and the following is added: "The Manilla ships always try to make this Volcano."
[262] A group of islands called Shidsi To, lying in 34° 20'.—Rizal.
[263] "Thirty-eight degrees" is probably an error for "twenty-eight degrees," and these islands [the first ones mentioned in the above sentence] would be the Mounin-Sima Islands, lying between 26° 35' and 27° 45'; and Lot's Wife in 29° 51', and Crespo, in 32° 46', which [latter] are supposed by the Univers Pittoresque to be the Roca de Oro [rock of gold] and the Roca de Plata of the ancient maps.—Stanley.
For these latter islands, see Vol. XIV, p. 272, note 45.
[264] A fungous substance that grows in the sea, and contains signs of life.
[265] Probably the dogfish, a species of shark.
[266] Most of these places can be identified on the old maps of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and most of the names are retained today. The island of Cedros is shown on a map of 1556 (Ramusio: Vniversale della parte del mondo nvovamente ritrovata). The island of Cenizas is shown, on the old maps, in about 32°, and Cedros in about 29°. The Marias or Tres Marias Islands are Maria Madre, Maria Magdalena, and Maria Cleofas. Cape Corrientes is south of La Valle de Banderas and Chametla. Socatul is called Socatula and Zocatula. An English map of 1626, engraved by Abraham Goos, shows the town of Ciguatlan, north of Aquapulco, which may be the same as Morga's Ciguatanejo. Los Motines cannot be identified.
[267] Acosta in his History of the Indies (Hakluyt Soc. edition, London, 1880) says of the courses between the Philippines and New Spain: "The like discourse is of the Navigation made into the South sea, going from New Spaine or Peru to the Philippines or China, and returning from the Philippines or China to New Spaine, the which is easie, for that they saile alwaies from East to West neere the line, where they finde the Easterly windes to blow in their poope. In the yeere 1584, there went a shippe from Callao in Lima to the Philippines, which sailed 2000 and 700 leagues without sight of land, and the first it discovered was the Iland of Lusson, where they tooke port, having performed their voiage in two moneths, without want of winde or any torment, and their course was almost continually vnder the line; … The returne is like vnto the voiage from the Indies vnto Spaine, for those which returne from the Philippines or China to Mexico, to the end they may recover the Westerne windes, they mount a great height, vntill they come right against the Ilands of Iappon, and, discovering the Caliphornes, they returne by the coast of New Spaine to the port of Acapulco."
[268] Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola was born in 1566 of a family of Italian origin, being the second son. Taking orders, he became rector of Villahermosa in 1588, and chaplain to Maria of Austria, the queen, in 1598. After the latter's death he was commissioned by the Conde de Lemos, president of the Council of the Indias, to write a history of the conquest of the Moluccas. He later spent some time in the kingdom of Naples, and about 1618 was made historian of Aragón. He died at Zaragoza in 1631. In addition to the present history, which is noted for its excellent literary style, he wrote Primera parte de los anales de Aragón (Zaragoza, 1630) the continuation of the Anales of Zurita. He was also a poet, whose poems are remarkable for their purity of style and loftiness of sentiment; they are published, with those of his elder brother, under the title Rimas de Lupercio i del doctor Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola (Zaragoza, 1634). One of the chief poems is an ode in honor of the church after the battle of Lepanto.