The English Call This An Out-Lier, Or Out-Rigger,
And The Dutch Oytlager.
The air of this island is accounted
exceedingly healthy, except in the wet season between June and October.
The Indians inhabit small villages on the west side of this island near
the shore, and have priests among them to instruct them in the Christian
religion.
By means of a civil letter from Captain Swan to the Spanish
governor, accompanied by some presents, we obtained a good supply of
hogs, cocoa-nuts, rice, biscuits, and other refreshments, together with
fifty pounds of Manilla tobacco.
Learning from one of the friars that the island of Mindanao, inhabited
by Mahometans, abounded in provisions, we set sail from Guam on the 2d
June with a strong E. wind, and arrived on the 21st at the Isle of St
John, one of the Philippines. These are a range of large islands
reaching from about the latitude of 5 deg. to about 19 deg. N. and from long.
120 deg. to 126 deg. 30' E. The principal island of the group is Luzon, or
Luconia, in which Magellan was slain by a poisoned arrow, and which is
now entirely subject to the Spaniards. Their capital city of Manilla is
in this island, being a large town and sea-port, seated at the
south-west end, opposite to the island of Mindora, and is a place of
great strength and much trade, especially occasioned by the Acapulco
ships, which procure here vast quantities of India commodities, brought
hither by the Chinese and Portuguese, and sometimes also by stealth by
the English from fort St George or Madras; for the Spaniards allow of no
regular trade here to the English and Dutch, lest they should discover
their weakness, and the riches of these islands, which abound in gold.
To the south of Luzon there are twelve or fourteen large islands,
besides a great number of small isles, all inhabited by, or subject to,
the Spaniards. But the two most southerly, Mindanao and St John, are not
subjected by the Spaniards.
The Island of St John, or San Juan, is about the lat. of 9 deg. N. on the
east side of Mindanao, and about four leagues from that island, being
about thirty-eight leagues in length from N.N.W. to S.S.E. and about
twenty-four leagues broad in the middle, having a very rich and fertile
soil. Mindanao, next to Luzon, is the largest of the Philippines,
being sixty leagues long by forty or fifty leagues broad. Its southern
end is in lat. 5 deg. 30' N. the N.W. extremity reaching to 9 deg. 40' N. The
soil is generally fertile, and its stony hills produce many kinds of
trees, most of which are unknown to Europeans. The vallies are supplied
with brooks and rivulets, and stored with various sorts of ever-green
trees, and with rice, water-melons, plantains, bananas, guavas, nutmegs,
cloves, betel-nuts, durians, jacks, or jackas, cocoa-nuts, oranges,
&c.; but, above all, by a species of tree called libby by the natives,
which produces sago, and grows in groves several miles in length.
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