Panay and Mindoro

Some of the islands of the Philippines are very mountainous dry land.

We saw many fires in the night as we passed by Panay, a great island settled by Spaniards, and by the fires up and down it seems to be well settled by them.

This is a Spanish custom whereby they give notice of any danger or the like from sea; and it is probable they had seen our ship the day before.

This is an unfrequented coast and it is rare to have any ship seen there. We touched not at Panay nor anywhere else though we saw a great many small islands to the westward of us and some shoals, but none of them laid down in our charts.

MINDORO ISLAND

On February 18, we anchored at the north-west end of the island Mindoro, in 10 fathom water, about 3 quarters of a mile from the shore.

Mindoro is a large island. The middle of it lying in latitude 13, about 40 leagues long, stretching north-west and south-east. It is high and mountainous and not very woody.

At this place where we anchored the land was neither very high nor low.

There was a small brook of water, and the land by the sea was very woody, and the trees high and tall, but a league or two farther in the woods are very thin and small.

Here we saw great tracks of hog and beef, and we saw some of each and hunted them; but they were wild and we could kill none.

A canoe with 4 natives came from Manila. They were very shy of us a while but at last, hearing us speak Spanish, they came to us and told us that they were going to a friar that lived at an Indian village towards the south-east end of the island.

They told us also that the harbour of Manila is seldom or never without 20 or 30 sail of vessels, most Chinese, some Portuguese, and some few the Spaniards have of their own.

They said that when they had done their business with the friar they would return to Manila, and hope to be back again at this place in four days’ time.

We told them that we came for a trade with the Spaniards at Manila, and should be glad if they would carry a letter to some merchant there, which they promised to do.

But this was only a pretence of ours to get out of them what intelligence we could as to their shipping, strength, and the like, under colour of seeking a trade; for our business was to pillage.

If we had really designed to have traded there this was as fair an opportunity as men could have desired: for these men could have brought us to the friar that they were going to, and a small present to him would have engaged him to do any kindness for us in the way of trade: for the Spanish governors do not allow of it and we must trade by stealth.

On the 21st, we left there with the wind at east-north-east a small gale. On the 23rd, in the morning, we were fair by the south-east end of the island Luzon, the place that had been so long desired by us.

TWO BARKS TAKEN

We took a sail coming from the northward in two hours’ time.

She was a Spanish bark that came from a place called Pangasanam, a small town on the north end of Luzon; probably the same with Pongassiny, which lies on a bay at the north-west side of the island.

She was bound to Manila but had no goods aboard; and therefore we turned her away.

The 23rd we took another Spanish vessel that came from the same place as the other.

She was laden with rice and cotton-cloth and bound for Manila also. These goods were purposely for the Acapulco ship: the rice was for the men to live on while they lay there and in their return: and the cotton-cloth was to make sail.

The master of this prize was boatswain of the Acapulco ship which escaped us at Guam and was now at Manila.

It was this man that gave us the relation of what strength it had, how they were afraid of us there, and of the accident that happened to them, as is before mentioned in the 10th chapter. We took these two vessels within seven or eight leagues of Manila.

LUZON AND MANILA BAY

Luzon is a big island, taking up between 6 and 7 degrees of latitude in length. Its witdh near the middle is about 60 leagues, but the ends are narrow.

The north end lies in about 19 degrees north latitude and the south end is about 12 degrees 30 minutes. This great island has abundance of small keys or islands lying about it; especially at the north end.

The south side fronts towards the rest of the Philippine Islands: of these that are its nearest neighbours Mindoro lately mentioned is the chief, and gives name to the sea or strait that parts it and the other islands from Luconia: being called the Straits of Mindoro.

Luzon has many spacious plain savannahs and large mountains. The north end seems to be more plain and even, I mean freer from hills, than the south end: but the land is all along of a good height.

It does not appear so flourishing and green as some of the other islands in this range; especially that of St. John, Mindanao, Bat Island, etc., yet in some places it is very woody.

Some of the mountains of this island afford gold, and the savannahs are well stocked with herds of cattle, especially Buffaloes. These cattle are in great plenty all over the East Indies; It is very probable that there were many of these here even before the Spaniards came hither. But now there are also plenty of other cattle, as I have been told, as bullocks, horses, sheep, goats, hogs, etc., brought hither by the Spaniards.

It is pretty well inhabited with natives, most of them if not all under the Spaniards.

The native Indians do live together in towns; and they have priests among them to instruct them in the Spanish religion.

Manila, the chief or perhaps the only city, lies at the foot of a ridge of high hills, facing upon a spacious harbour near the south-west point of the island, in about the latitude of 14 degrees north.

It is environed with a high strong wall and very well fortified with forts and breast-works. The houses are large, strongly built, and covered with pan-tile. The streets are large and pretty regular; with a parade in the midst, after the Spanish fashion. There are a great many fair buildings besides churches and other religious houses; of which there are not a few.

The harbour is so large that some hundreds of ships may ride here; and is never without many, both of their own and strangers.

I have already given you an account of the two ships going and coming between this place and Acapulco. Besides them they have some small vessels of their own; and they do allow the Portuguese to trade here, but the Chinese are the chiefest merchants and they drive the greatest trade; for they have commonly twenty, thirty, or forty junks in the harbour at a time, and a great many merchants constantly residing in the city besides shopkeepers, and handicrafts-men in abundance. Small vessels run up near the town, but the Acapulco ships and others of greater burden lie a league short of it, where there is a strong fort also, and storehouses to put goods in.

I had the major part of this relation 2 or 3 years after this time from Mr. Coppinger our surgeon; for he made a voyage hither from Porto Nova, a town on the coast of Coromandel; in a Portuguese ship, as I think. Here he found ten or twelve of Captain Swan’s men; some of those that we left at Mindanao.

For after we came from thence they bought a proa there, by the instigation of an Irishman who went by the name of John Fitz-Gerald, a person that spoke Spanish very well; and so in this their proa they came hither.

They had been here but eighteen months when Mr. Coppinger arrived here, and Mr. Fitz-Gerald had in this time gotten a Spanish Mestiza woman to wife, and a good dowry with her.

He then professed physic and surgery, and was highly esteemed among the Spaniards for his supposed knowledge in those arts; for, being always troubled with sore shins while he was with us, he kept some plasters and salves by him; and with these he set up upon his bare natural stock of knowledge and his experience in kibes.

But then he had a very great stock of confidence withal to help out the other and, being an Irish Roman Catholic, and having the Spanish language, he had a great advantage of all his consorts; and he alone lived well there of them all.

We were not within sight of this town but I was shown the hills that overlooked it, and drew a draft of them as we lay off at sea; which I have caused to be engraven among a few others that I took myself. See the Table.