[Further west by a distance of four hundred leagues lie the islands called Chamurres or Ladrones, which, according to report, number thirteen islands.  The largest of all is not forty leagues in circumference.  They are all alike in appearance, trade, and food products.  I have seen but the island of Guahan.  Their weapons consist of slings and clubs hardened in fire, which they use instead of lances.  They hurl stones to so great a distance with their slings, that they are beyond range of the arquebuses.  They live on rice, bananas, cocoanuts, roots, and fish.  They have great quantities of ginger.]

Further west is the island of Mindanao, with a circuit of three hundred and fifty leagues.  It is in its greatest measurements one hundred and forty leagues long, and sixty leagues wide.  The northern promontory juts out between the two rivers of Butuan and Zurigan, famous for their gold, although the Spaniards who went there were able to find but little—­or, to be more accurate, none.  According to what I have learned, all the gold mines of this island are so poor that the natives offer their labor for a gold maes [58] or three reals per month.  In this island cinnamon grows.  I believe that, if good order be established there, we shall be able to barter for eight hundred quintals, and even [one thousand] [59] for a year of this article; for I was present at the barter of that which was lost with the flagship.  In one month we bartered for more than six hundred quintals of cinnamon at three reals per quintal, this money being reckoned in iron of that land.  This island contains pitch. [I do not declare here the trade, rites, clothing, weapons, and food of this island, because many others are just like it; and I will place this information at the end of these islands, in order to avoid prolixity.] The middle of the island lies in fully seven and one-third degrees of north latitude.

Northeast of Mindanao is another island called Tandaya.  There are certain rocky islands with an island called San Lorenzo in their midst.  The fact of their being small and uninhabited does not debar anyone who wishes from finding them on the chart.  Tantaya has a circuit of one hundred and forty leagues, and is almost triangular in shape. [The clothing, weapons, rites, and food of this people are the same as that above.] Its center lies in fully twelve degrees north latitude.

Nearer the island of Mindanao than the above-named, and extending in a north and south direction ten leagues from the point of Mindanao, is another island called Baybay.  It has a circumference of ninety-eight leagues, and forms a strait on the east with the island of Tandaya, less than a league wide; and another on the south with a very small island, called “Panae the little,” [60] through which strait one cannot pass, except in a small and light vessel.  West of this strait is the island of Mazoga.  It is reported here that this island is very small, and that it has a population of six or eight Indians. [It forms another strait, which can be passed by any ship.] The center of the said island of Baybay is in eleven degrees of latitude. [It has the same people, weapons, trade, and customs as the islands above.]