The capital is named Mindanao, like the island, being on the south-west side, two miles from the sea, on the bank of a small river, in lat. 7 deg.  N. The houses are built on posts, fourteen to twenty feet high, consisting only of one floor, but divided in many rooms by partitions.  The house or palace of the sultan rests on 150 great posts, being much higher than any of the others, and had great broad stairs leading up to it from the ground.  In the hall there were twenty pieces of iron cannon upon field carriages, and the general and other great men have also some cannon in their houses.  The floors are generally well covered with mats, and they have no chairs, but usually sit cross-legged.  Their ordinary food is rice, sago, and some small fish; but the better people use buffaloe beef, and fowl, with a great deal of rice, every one using their fingers, as they have no spoons.  The inhabitants of the city of Mindanao speak both the Mindanayan and Malay languages, and their prayers are in Arabic, in which also they retain some Turkish words.  Some of the old people of both sexes can speak Spanish, as the Spaniards had formerly several forts in the island, and had assuredly reduced the whole if they had not been afraid of an attack from the Chinese at Manilla, on which account they withdrew their troops from Mindanao, when the father of the present sultan laid hold of the opportunity to gain possession of their forts, and to expel them from the island.  At present they are most in fear of the Dutch, for which reason they have often invited the English to make a settlement among them, believing them not so ready to encroach as either of the other nations.

The chief trades in this city are goldsmiths, blacksmiths, carpenters, and shipwrights, for they build good ships both for war and trade.  Their chief commodities for export are gold, bees-wax, and tobacco; the two first being purchased from the mountaineers, and the last grows in all parts of the island in great plenty.  They exchange these commodities for calicoes, muslins, and China silks.  The Mindanao tobacco is reckoned as good as that of Manilla, and yet ten or twelve pounds of it may be bought for a rial, or the eighth part of a dollar.  The natives are generally afflicted with a dry itchy scurf all over their bodies, and by scratching, the skin peels off in small white flakes, like the scales of small fish, leaving broad white spots all over their bodies; but they did not seem to make any great account of this disease, which is not infectious.  They are also troubled with small-pox; but their most common diseases are fevers, agues, fluxes, and violent griping pains in their bowels.  They have many wives, but I could not learn their marriage ceremonies.