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THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
[Vol. 3

fore upon this conquest with one hundred soldiers. When he had entered the said province, some of the natives retired to forts which they had built, and tried to resist him. He routed them, and took from them some culverins in their possession and they were left pacified. While he was subjugating this province, there came news that two ships had arrived from Nueva España, sent by the viceroy Don Martin Enrriquez, with a reënforcement of one hundred soldiers, under the captaincy of Juan López de Aguirre. The governor thereupon ordered the master-of-camp to go to Panay, to send the said ships to this port of Manilla, and to bring back his wife, who was in Çubú. In consideration of this service the first repartimiento in this island and a river called Bonbon was allotted to him.

At this same time of which we have spoken, there came down from up the river which flows by Manilla, several chiefs of a village named Caynta, to proclaim themselves friends of the governor. This said village had about a thousand inhabitants, and was surrounded by very tall and very dense bamboo thickets, and fortified with a wall and a few small culverins. The same river as that of Manilla circles around the village and a branch of it passes through the middle dividing it in two sections. Now when they had made their declarations of friendship to the Spaniards, and saw our situation and condition in Manilla, they came to think lightly of us; and, after their departure to their village, sent word that they did not care to be friends, but would rather fight with the governor and his men. They said that, if the Spaniards would come up the river for this purpose, they would see how the people of Caynta would hurl