help on the way back;
but let it be remembered that he who wishes to return ought to take
a higher degree of latitude, because there the winds will not fail him.

In view of your Majesty's command and orders from Don Luis de Velasco,
viceroy of Nueva Espana, the expedition commanded by Miguel Lopes
de Legaspi has discovered since November twenty-first, 1564, the
following islands to the west, in the South Sea:

North-southwest from Puerto de la Navidad, in about ten degrees of
north latitude, and at a distance of eleven hundred and twenty leagues,
were found some islands running east and west. The inhabitants
were dressed in a sort of cloth made of thin palm-bark. The men
wore long beards, and for that reason the islands received the name
of Barbudos. [57] No weapons were found among them, from which we
can infer that they are a peaceful people, and that they had never
come into conflict with other men. They live on cocoanuts, roots,
and fish. It was learned that they kept some Castilian fowls. These
islands may be about one hundred and seventy-five leagues from Nueba
Espana [S: Nueva Guinea].

[Further west by a distance of four hundred leagues lie the
islands called Chamurres or Ladrones, which, according to report,
number thirteen islands. The largest of all is not forty leagues
in circumference. They are all alike in appearance, trade, and
food products. I have seen but the island of Guahan. Their weapons
consist of slings and clubs hardened in fire, which they use instead of
lances. They hurl stones to so great a distance with their slings, that
they are beyond range of the arquebuses. They live on rice, bananas,
cocoanuts, roots, and fish. They have great quantities of ginger.]

Further west is the island of Mindanao, with a circuit of three
hundred and fifty leagues. It is in its greatest measurements one
hundred and forty leagues long, and sixty leagues wide. The northern
promontory juts out between the two rivers of Butuan and Zurigan,
famous for their gold, although the Spaniards who went there were
able to find but little--or, to be more accurate, none. According to
what I have learned, all the gold mines of this island are so poor
that the natives offer their labor for a gold _maes_ [58] or three
reals per month. In this island cinnamon grows. I believe that,
if good order be established there, we shall be able to barter for
eight hundred _quintals_, and even [one thousand] [59] for a year
of this artic