[*Sidenote: The Philippinas.]
Spaniards called them Philippinas in memory of the prince of Spaine.[1] Here they tooke victuals and wood, and hoised sailes, they sailed for certaine daies with a fore-winde, till it came vpon the skanting, and came right vnder the tropique of Cancer.
Malabrigos. The 25 of September they had sight of certaine Islands, which they named Malabrigos, that is to say, The euil roads.
Las dos Hermanas. Beyond them they discouered Las dos Hermanas, that is The two sisters. And beyond them also they saw 4. islands more, which they called los Volcanes. The second of October they had sight of Farfana, beyond which there standeth an high pointed rock, which casteth out fire at 5. places. So sayling in 16. degrees of northerly latitude, from whence they had come, as it seemeth wanting winde, they arriued againe at the Islands of the Philippinas.
Sixe or seuen Islands more. They had sight of 6. or 7. Islands more, but they ankered not at them.
An Archipelagus of Islands. [**P2 Resized and found Archipelagus spelled in sidenote truly differently from Archepelagus in text.]They found also an Archepelagus of Islands well inhabited with people, lying in 15. or 16. degrees: the people be white, and the weomen well proportioned, and more beautifull and better arraied than in any other place of those parts hauing many iewels of gold, which was a token, that there was some of that metal in the same countrie. Here were also barkes of 43. cubits in length, and 2. fathomes and a halfe in bredth, and the plankes 5. inches thicke, which barkes were rowed with oares.
Pilots for China. They told the Spaniards, that they vsed to saile in them to China, and that if they would go thither they should haue pilots to conduct them, the countrie not being aboue 5. or 6. daies sayling from thence. There came vnto them also certaine barkes or boates handsomely decked, wherein the master and principall men sate on high, and vnderneath were very blacke moores with frizled haire: and being demanded where they had these black moores, they answered, that they had them from certaine Islands standing fast by Sebut, where there were many of them, a thing that the Spaniards much maruailed at, because from thence it was aboue 300. leagues to the places where the black people were. Therefore it seemed, that they were not naturally borne in that climate, but that they be in certaine places scattered ouer the whole circuite of the world. For euen so they
- ↑ The relation of Iohn Gaietan in the first vol. of Ramusius fol. 376.
