Rice is the main article of food in these islands.  In a few of them people gather enough of it to last them the whole year.  In most of the islands, during the greater part of the year, they live on millet, borona, roasted bananas, certain roots resembling sweet potatoes and called oropisa, as well as on yams [yunames] and camotes [68] whose leaves they also eat, boiled.  They eat Castilian fowls and pork.  In the islands inhabited by Moros, some goats are raised; but there are so few of them that wherever fifteen or twenty Spaniards arrive, no goats will be seen for the next two or three years.  The cocoa-palm offers the greatest means of sustenance to the natives, for they obtain from it wine, fruit, oil, and vinegar.  These people eat many kinds of herbs which grow both on land and in the sea.  Some of these herbs have been used by our people as articles of food.  The scarcity of all kinds of food here is such that—­with all that is brought continually from all these islands, in three frigates, one patache, and all the other native boats that could be obtained—­each soldier or captain could only receive [as his rations] each week two almudes of unwinnowed rice—­which, when winnowed, yielded no more than three cuartillos.  This ration was accompanied by nothing else, neither meat nor fish.

The natives sustain life by eating little and drinking much—­so heavily, that it is a marvel if they are not drunken all the time, or at least from noon on.  And the more important their position, the more intoxicated do they become, for they have more to spend for this purpose.  The inhabitants of the coast are fishermen who barter their fish and buy from those living inland, who till the soil, the above-named foods.  They eat all kinds of shell-fish and slimy plants which grow at the bottom of the sea.

They are but ill supplied with cloth.  They use a kind of cloth made of wild banana leaves [69] which is as stiff as parchment, and not very durable.  The natives of Panae and Luzon manufacture a cotton cloth with colored stripes, which is of better quality.  This cloth is used by the Spaniards when they can find it; otherwise they use the cloth above-mentioned.  Both kinds are so scarce, that we are suffering great privations for lack of clothing.  The people are very poor.  There are few islands where, as it is reported, gold does not exist—­but in so small quantities that quite commonly [as I think I have said] a native can be hired to dig, or to work as he is commanded, for three reals a month.  A slave can be bought for fifty reals, or sometimes for a little more.  It is therefore evident that it is not possible to save from the mines much gold, as can be seen by any man who zealously wishes to serve your Majesty who laments the great expenses of both men and money incurred here.

In that land people buy and sell slaves to one another in great numbers, and even bring them to the islands of the Moros.  Most slaves are children and grandchildren of slaves from time immemorial.  In this connection, it seems to me that it would be less troublesome, and that God would be better served, if the Spaniards bought these slaves and took them to Nueva Espana, where they would become Christians; they would thus supply the great need for slaves there, and would prove a resource for the Spaniards who live there.