Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 02).djvu/116

were fettered with irons, by swimming; one hanged himself, and the others were set free. Urdaneta proposed that a settlement be made in this island, and a vessel despatched to New Spain, but Legazpi said this would be acting contrary to his instructions. Before leaving the island, however, a hundred men under the command of Mateo del Saz landed to inflict chastisement for the death of a ship-boy whom the natives, finding him asleep in a palm grove, whither he had gone while the water-butts were being refilled, had killed in a most barbarous manner. Four of the natives were captured, three of whom (all wounded) were hanged at the same place where the boy had been killed; and the other was, through the intervention of the priests, taken aboard the ship, in order to send him to New Spain. Many houses were burned, a damage, "which, although slight, was some punishment for so great baseness and treachery as they had displayed toward us, … and was done, so that when Spaniards, vassals of his majesty, anchor there another time, the natives shall give them a better reception, and maintain more steadfastly the friendship made with them." "This island of Goam is high and mountainous, and throughout, even to its seacoast, is filled with groves of cocoa-palms and other trees, and thickly inhabited. Even in the valleys, where there are rivers, it is inhabited. It has many fields sown with rice, and abundance of yams, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, and bananas—these last the best I have seen, being in smell and taste far ahead of those of Nueva España. This same island has also much ginger, and specimens of sulphurous rock were found." The island had "no wild or tame cattle, nor any birds, except some little turtle-doves that are