Near Tidore is the large island of Gilolo, which is divided between the Mahometans and idolaters.  The two Mahometan kings have themselves contributed liberally to the population of the island; one of them having 600 children, and the other 650.  The pagans are more moderate in their conduct in this respect than the Mahometans, and are even less superstitious; yet it is said that they worship, for the rest of the day, whatever they first see every morning.  In this island there grows a peculiar sort of reed, as big as a man’s leg, which is full of limpid wholesome water.  On the 12th November, a public warehouse was opened by the Spaniards in the town of Tidore, for the sale of their merchandise, which were exchanged at the following rates.  For ten yards of good red cloth, they had one bahar of cloves, containing four cantars or quintals and six pounds; the cantar being 100 pounds.  For fifteen yards of inferior cloth, they had one bahar.  Likewise a bahar for 35 drinking glasses, or for 17 cathyls of quicksilver.  The islanders also brought all sorts of provisions daily to the ships, together with excellent water from certain hot springs in the mountains where the cloves grow.  They here received a singular present for the king of Spain, being two dead birds about the size of turtle-doves, with small legs and heads and long bills, having two or three long party-coloured, feathers at each side, instead of wings, all the rest of their plumage being of a uniform tawny colour.  These birds never fly except when favoured by the wind.  The Mahometans allege that these birds come from Paradise, and therefore call them the birds of God.

Besides cloves, the Molucca islands produce ginger, rice, sago, goats, sheep, poultry, popinjays, white and red figs, almonds, pomegranates, oranges and lemons, and a kind of honey which is produced by a species of fly less than ants.  Likewise sugar-canes, cocoa-nuts, melons, gourds, and a species of fruit, called camulical, which is extremely cold.  The isle of Tidore is in lat. 0 deg. 45’ N. and long. 127 deg. 10’ E.[18] and about 9 deg. 30’ W. from the Ladrones,[19] in a direction nearly S.W.  Formerly the natives of these islands were all heathens, the Moors or Mahometans having only had footing there for about fifty years before the arrival of the Spaniards.  Ternate is the most northerly of these islands, and Batchian is almost under the line, being the largest of them all.[20]

[Footnote 18:  This is the true position, reckoning the longitude from Greenwich.  In the original the longitude is said to be 170 deg.  W. from the first meridian of the voyagers, being Seville in Spain, which would give 174 deg.  E. from Greenwich; no great error, considering the imperfect way in which the longitude was then reckoned at sea.—­E.]

[Footnote 19:  This is a gross error, perhaps of the press, as the difference of longitude is 16 deg. 30’.—­E.]

[Footnote 20:  The northern end of Batchian is in lat. 0 deg. 28’, and its southern extremity in 0 deg. 40’, both south.—­E.]