Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 03).djvu/151

This page has been validated.
1569–1576]
CONQUEST OF LUZON
147

to an island called Acuyo. Thereupon the question was discussed of sending men to explore the island of Luzón; and it was agreed that the master-of-camp and captain Juan de Sauzedo should set out upon this expedition with a hundred soldiers.

The necessary preparations having been made for this expedition, the master-of-camp and the said captain embarked in two of our small ships, with three large pieces of artillery, and accompanied by fourteen or fifteen ships of the Pintados Indians, our friends, who in their own language are called Viseys. They sailed out of the river of Panay in the year of seventy, above mentioned, on the third of May, the day of Sancta Cruz. I did not take part in this expedition but shall describe literally everything which occurred in it. I have drawn my information from the others who participated in it, and more especially from two of my associates, both of whom went on this expedition, and who are men of great reliability—an advantage, as I have before mentioned. The master-of-camp arrived at the island of Mindoro, the village and port of which had the reputation of being very great and very strong, but which proved to be an exaggeration, for the village is small, containing only about three or four hundred inhabitants. The master-of-camp having arrived, as I have said, at that port, the Indians were drawn up on a declivity before the village, and made signs that they intended to prevent the entrance of the Spaniards. The master-of-camp, with all his soldiers, leaped ashore in front of the village on a little plain, and, approaching the village in a zigzag course, thus attacked it. The gunners who were in the ship were ordered to discharge a cannon in the air when the