The archbishop of Manila has three suffragans, those of Zebu, [Nueva] Caçares, and Nueva Segovia. They have no other income than what the king gives them; that of the archbishop is three thousand ducados, while each of his suffragans receives one thousand five hundred. The city of Manila is small, but it is beautiful and well fortified. Its houses are all built of stone, and are spacious, and very airy. Its streets are long and straight, and one may walk in the shade all hours of the day. The churches are beautiful. There are five convents: that of the Augustinians (which is the oldest); that of the Franciscans, that of the Dominicans,[21] and that of the discalced Augustinians. There are two universities, one in charge of the fathers of St. Dominic, and the other in that of the Society. Those religious are also distributed among the islands, where they have charge of the instruction of the Indians. The city is enclosed by a fine wall and moat; and its redoubt and its ramparts are well garrisoned with artillery. At the foot of its wall flows a river, which is navigable; over this is a wooden bridge, with stone pillars. There are two thousand Spaniards in Manila (counting soldiers and inhabitants), and twice as many Indians. There are also twenty thousand Sangleys or Chinese, who practice all the arts needed in a community; and every year they pay nine escudos and six reals of tribute. Galleons much larger than those which sail the Mediterranean are built at Manila; for there is a great abundance of wood, pitch, and abacá—which resembles European hemp, and of which good rigging is made for the ships. The anchors are imported from Goa; and the iron for the nails comes from China in little bars, and is very serviceable.
The Spaniards of the Manilas trade throughout the islands of that archipelago, at Borney and Camboa, whence they carry wax, butter, camanguien or storax, ivory, and bezoar. They formerly traded in Japon, before the persecution of the Christians was begun. Thence were carried iron, flour, all sorts of fruit, and little boxes, and cabinets, varnished [i.e., lacquered] and very well made. Nangoza [sc. Nagasaki], which was the port where that trading took place—and for which it was very suitable, because it is not distant from Manila—is now closed to us; for the emperor of Japon believes that people are entering his country, under pretext of that trade, to preach the gospel, the thing that he fears most of all. We trade also with the Portuguese of Macao, who come to the Manilas every year with two or three ships, and bring here silks, musk, precious stones, and eagle and calambac wood—which is a sweet-scented wood that is very valuable. The inhabitants of the Manilas also go to Macao sometimes, to carry their merchandise there; but their chief trade is with the Chinese, who come annually, at the end of the month of December and the beginning of January, with twenty or thirty vessels, laden with products and valuable merchandise. They sail usually from Ocho and Chincheo, ports of Anay, a province of China which faces the Filipinas. They carry small oranges, nuts, chestnuts, plums, raisins, and chicuei—a fruit resembling an apple, very round, transparent, and, when it is ripe, having the color of yellow amber; its peel is very loose, and its flesh very sweet and very pleasant to the taste.[22] They also bring all sorts of cloth stuffs, and some of these are as fine as those which come from France and the Low Countries; and many black stuffs of which the Indians make their clothes. They bring silk, plain and twisted, of all colors; damasks, velvets, tabbies, and double taffetas; cloths of gold and silver, galoons, and laces; coverlets, and cushions; and porcelain—although not the finest variety, as the trade in that is prohibited. They bring pearls and gold; iron, in little bars; thread, musk, and fine parasols; paste gems, but very beautiful to look at; saltpetre, and flour; white and various-colored paper; and many little fancy articles, covered with varnish, and gold in relief, made in an inimitable manner. Among all the silk stuffs brought by the Chinese, none is more esteemed than the white—the snow is not whiter; and there is no silk stuff in Europa that can approach it.
The Chinese return in the month of March, and carry to China silver in return for their merchandise. They also take a wood called sibueno[23]—that is, brazil-wood, which is used in making their ink. Those Chinese merchants are so keen after gain that if one sort of merchandise has succeeded well one year, they take a great deal of it the following year. A Spaniard who had lost his nose through a certain illness, sent for a Chinese to make him one of wood, in order to hide the deformity. The workman made him so good a nose that the Spaniard, in great delight, paid him munificently, giving him twenty escudos. The Chinese, attracted by the ease with which he had made that gain, laded a fine boatload of wooden noses the following year, and returned to Manila. But he found himself very far from his hopes, and quite left out in the cold;[24] for in order to have a sale for that new merchandise, he found that he would have to cut off the noses of all the Spaniards in the country.
Besides the Chinese merchandise that is brought into the islands, there is wax, cinnamon, civet, and a sort of very strong cotton cloth which is called campotes [misprint for lampotes]. All those goods are exported to Mexico, where they are sold at great profit, and on the spot. I do not believe there is a richer traffic in the world than that. The duties that the king gets out of it are large, and, with what he gets from the islands, amount to fully five hundred thousand escudos. But he spends eight hundred thousand in the maintenance of his governor, the counselors, the archbishop, the bishops, the canons, those who possess the prebends, and the other ecclesiastics. The greater part of that sum is employed in the equipment of the galleons that are sent to Mexico and to the Malucas, and of those which are kept in those seas to resist the Dutch. A considerable sum is spent on the maintenance of alliance with the kings of those districts—especially with the king of one of the Malucas, called Tidore. Consequently, the king of España rather holds those islands for the conservation there of the faith, as was stated by Felipe the Second in a certain council-meeting, than for the profit that is derived from them to this hour. The Dutch have been unable to get a footing on those islands, although they have attacked them many times. They have a considerable city [i.e., Batavia] on the island of Java Major, whence they send what their garrisons at the island of Hermosa, Amboina, and Terrenate need. They have made an alliance with the inhabitants of that island, and they secure the greater part of the cloves of the Malucas. They trade in Japon, in a port called Firando. The Chinese have refused to have trade with them, because of a tradition current in China, that blue-eyed men will some day conquer them.
The voyage from Manila to Mexico lasts four, five, six, or seven months. Manila, which lies in thirteen and one-half degrees, is left in the month of July, during the vendavals. The course is taken to the north, until the ship reaches thirty-eight or forty degrees. The pilots take that course because they are more certain of finding winds; for otherwise they would run the risk of encountering calms, which are more to be dreaded in long voyages than are the most furious gales. From the time that the Filipinas are left until almost the coast of Nueva España is reached, no land is seen, except a chain of islands called the Ladrones, or La Sapana,[25] which lie three hundred leguas from the Embocadero of the Filipinas. The people who inhabit those islands are barbarians, who go quite naked. When our vessels pass there, those people carry to them fish, rice, and fresh water, which they exchange for neither gold nor silver, but only for iron, which they value much more, because of the use to which they put it in the manufacture of their tools, and for the building of their little boats. The first land sighted after that is the island of Cedros, quite near the Mexican coast. The open expanse between that island and those of the Ladrones is subject to great storms, which are to be feared especially near the Japanese Islands—which are passed, however, without being sighted. During the whole course of so long a voyage, scarcely a day passes without seeing a bird. There are usually some birds that live in the sea, and many large whales and porpoises are seen.
As the [American] coast is neared, at a distance of sixty, eighty, or one hundred leguas signs are to be seen in the sea by which it is recognized that the ship is within that distance. Those signs consist of long reeds, brought down by the rivers of Nueva España, which being massed together resemble a kind of raft; and on those reeds are to be seen monkeys—another sign that they are approaching the coast. When the pilot discovers those signs, he immediately changes his course, and instead of continuing east he puts the nose of the ship south, in order to avoid getting caught in the land, or in some gulf whence he would have a hard time to get out; but, when he has sighted the coast of Nueva España, he follows it to the port of Acapulco, which lies in eighteen degrees.
Acapulco is a fine port, well sheltered from all the winds, and defended by a celebrated redoubt. There the passengers and goods are disembarked, and are afterward carried by mules to the City of Mexico, which is eighty leguas distant thence. The way is desert and bestrewn with mountains; and the pest of mosquitoes is suffered, as well as the extreme heat. In order to go to España from Mexico one goes to the port of Vera Cruz, a journey of eighty-five leguas; en route is passed the city of Los Angeles, which has about six thousand inhabitants, and whose bishop gets a salary of sixty thousand escudos. The reefs and rocks at the mouth of the port of Vera Cruz defend the entrance better than the fortress that commands it, although that fort is an excellent one. At that port anchor the trading fleets that come from España, laden with wine, olive-oil, cloths, wax, cinnamon, paper, and other European merchandise. Those trading fleets formerly passed the winter there, as they arrived [formerly] in the month of June, and remained there until the same month of the following year. Now they reach that port in the month of May, and leave about the month of August. They take as a rule three months to go to España. For my part, I took one hundred days in making that voyage. The port of Havana in Cuba, which is the best port of the Western Indias—and which is very safe, and defended by three redoubts—is touched at. There the two trading fleets—that of Mexico and that of Tierrafirme—are united with the galleons. Thence, after having coasted along the shores of Florida, and of Nueva Francia, they make the cape of Fineterre [Finisterre] or San Vincent, in order to lay their course toward Cadiz, which is the end of their voyage. That will also be the end of this relation, which I have written in order to be obedient to a person to whom I earnestly desire that it may prove agreeable.
[1] Marginal note: “This relation has been translated from a Spanish manuscript existing in the library of Don Carlo del Pezzo.”
This relation is unsigned, and undated, but Rev. Pablo Pastells, S.J., said during the course of a conversation with one of the Editors, in 1903, that the author was undoubtedly Father Diego de Bobadilla; and in his edition of Colin’s Labor evangélica (Barcelona, 1904), he says (iii, p. 798, note): “This father [i.e., Father Bobadilla] was the author in 1640 of the famous relation which was translated by Melquisedec Thévenot.”