These Islanders Were Large Handsome Men, Extraordinarily Fat, And Of A
Tawny Colour, Mostly Having Very Long Hair, Some Wearing It Tied Up In
Large Knots On The Crown Of Their Heads, Like Certain Wooden Images At
The Heads Of Their Canoes.
Their canoes were very artificially made,
considering that they use no edge-tools in their construction; and are
about
Seven or eight yards in length, by half a yard only in breadth,
their heads and stems being both alike, and having rafts made of canes
or reeds on their starboard sides, being also supplied both with masts
and sails. These latter are made of sedges, and are either square or
triangular. These canoes have this property, that they will sail almost
as well against the wind as before it.
On the 19th January, at day-break, Candish fell in with a head-land of
the Philippine islands, called Cabo del Espiritu Santo. The island
itself [Samar] is of considerable size, consisting of high land in the
middle, and depressed in its east and west extremities; the latter of
which runs a great way out to sea. It is in lat. 30 deg. N. being distant
110 leagues from Guam and about 60 leagues from Manilla, the chief of
the Philippines.[55] Samar is a woody island, and its inhabitants are
mostly heathens. Candish spent eleven days in sailing from Guam to this
place, having had some foul weather, and scarcely carrying any sail for
two or three nights. Manilla, at this time, was an unwalled town of no
great strength, yet containing vast riches in gold and valuable
commodities, and inhabited by six or seven hundred Spaniards. It has a
constant annual correspondence with Accapulco in New Spain; besides
which twenty or thirty vessels come thither yearly from China, for
conducting its trade with the Sangueloes: These are Chinese merchants,
very sharp and sensible men in every thing relating to trade, extremely
ingenious in all kinds of mechanical contrivances, and the most expert
embroiderers on silk and satin of any in the world. They will execute
any form of beast, fowl, or fish, in gold, silver, or silk, having all
the just proportions and colours in every part, and giving all the life
and beauty to their work, as if done by the best painter, or even as
nature has bestowed on the originals. The trade of these men with
Manilla must be very profitable, as they bring great quantities of gold
there, and exchange it against silver, weight for weight.[56]
[Footnote 55: The latitude of Cape Espiritu Santo, as given in the test,
is grossly erroneous, being only 12 deg. 35' N. and its long. 125 deg. 30' E.
from Greenwich. The difference of longitude from Guam, Guaham, or
Guaci, the most southerly of the Ladrones, is 17 deg. 45' nearly east, and
consequently 355 marine leagues. This island is divided from Luzon, or
Luconia, the principal island of the Philippines, by the narrow straits
of San Bernardino; and Cape Espiritu Santo is about 100 leagues, in a
straight line, from the city of Manilla, which lies to the N.W. Cape
Espiritu Santo is at the N.W. extremity of the island of Samar.
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