There is another tree which they call dabdab. [58] Its leaves also have an agreeable taste and serve as a lining for the inside of the kettle in which they cook their rice, preventing the latter from adhering to the sides.  This tree is very similar to the almond-tree, although its trunk and leaves are much larger.  These leaves are nearly as large as the palm of the hand and shaped like a heart.  It apparently dies in September and revives in January, when the flower appears, before the leaf; it is different from the balete, being larger and of a different shape, and red like a ruby.

Among other plants brought from Nueva Espana to the Filipinas is the anona, [59] which has grown larger and is more successfully raised in these islands; it yields a most delicious and delicate fruit.  It also loses its leaves, but soon renews them, almost as quickly as does the balete.

But, to return to the river of Manila—­over which the passage to the baths is made in boats, large or small according to the number of passengers—­by going up the stream the lagoon is reached; this, with its forty leagues of circumference, is one of the most remarkable objects in the world.  All that region is full of rivers, villages, and groves.  The lagoon itself is of fresh water, and has many islets which render it beautiful.  It abounds in fish, and in herons, ducks, and other water-fowl.  Above all, it contains many crocodiles or caimans (which there are called buaya), which cause great havoc among the poor fishermen and traders who navigate the river—­especially in stormy weather, when the waters become tumultuous, as often happens, and swamp their vessels.

Of the mission at Tigbauan, and what the fathers of the Society accomplished there.  Chapter XI.

In January of the year fifteen hundred and ninety-two, one of us two who were employed at Taitai had to depart for the island of Panai to give instruction and continue the work of conversion in the encomienda of Tigbauan.  The island of Panai, as I have already said, is in the province of the Pintados, in the diocese of Sebu.  It is a little more than a hundred leguas in circumference, and, in all its extent, most temperate and fertile.  Its inhabitants are the Bissayas, a white people, who have among them some blacks—­the ancient inhabitants of the island, who occupied it before the Bissayas did.  They are not so dark or ugly as are the natives of Guinea, but are very diminutive and weak; but in their hair and beard they closely resemble the Guineans.  They are much more barbarous and untamed than are the Bissayas and most of the Filipinos, for they have not, like those peoples, houses or fixed sites for their villages.  They do not sow seed, or gather harvests; but with their women and children wander, half naked, over the mountains like beasts.  They capture on foot the deer and the javali, [60] and on the spot where they capture an animal they stop, and feed upon it as long as it