One dozen caldrons with three compartments, xii

    Four syringes, and the cupping glasses and the lancets
    which are likewise ordered,

    Sail-needles with large eyes,

    Workmen who understand how to build vessels,

    Six cables for the flagship, of fourteen or sixteen
    quintals each

The steel that is asked for. [Certain shapes and sizes of steel spikes are specified, with drawings to illustrate; five, thirty, forty, and fifty respectively, of the various kinds are asked for.]

[Endorsed: “List of articles which are required for his majesty’s camp situated in the port of Cubu of the West.”]

Relation of the Voyage to the Philippine Islands, By Miguel Lopez de Legazpi—­1565

Illustrious Sire: 

I wrote to your excellency from Puerto de la Navidad giving as full an account as possible up to that port.  Now I shall do the same, for I consider it a debt justly due, and I shall always consider it so whenever the opportunity presents itself.  I am enjoying good health, thanks be to our Lord; and the same can be said of the whole camp, a thing which ought not to be looked upon as of little importance.  May our Lord grant to your excellency the good health that I wish.

On Tuesday, November 21, three hours before dawn, I set sail with the fleet that was at Puerto de la Navidad.  For five days the fleet sailed southwest, but on the sixth we directed our course westward until we reached the ninth degree.  We sailed on in this latitude in search of the island of Los Reyes, in order that we might go from that point to the Felippinas.  A week after we had taken this course, we awoke one morning and missed the patache “San Lucas,” with Captain Don Alonso de Arellano in command.  There had been no stormy weather to make it lose sight of us; nor could it have been Don Alonso’s fault, for he was a gallant man, as he showed.  It is believed that it was due to the malice or intent of the pilot.  And as he had already been informed about the expedition that we were making, and the course we were to sail, and as he was fully instructed as to what he must do in case he should lose sight of us (as actually happened), and whither he must proceed to await us, we expected all the time that we would find the vessel in some of these islands.  But up to this time we have heard nothing of it, which gives me not a little uneasiness.  After the fleet had sailed for fifty days in the same course between nine and ten degrees, a degree more or less, we reached land, which proved to be an island inhabited by poor and naked fishermen.  This island was about four leagues in circumference, and had a population of about two hundred men.  That same day we sailed between two other small islands, which were uninhabited and surrounded by many reefs, which proved very troublesome