The islands properly called the Filipinas begin at the large island of Burnei, not far from Malaca, which serves as a roadstead for the Portuguese who sail for Maluco.  This island extends from the first or second degree on the south of the equinoctial line to about the eighth degree on the north side.  The Mahometan king of this island, although he retained his own religion, rendered obedience as a vassal of the crown of Castilla when Doctor Francisco de Sande [53] was governor of the Filipinas.  The island of Siao [54] is east of Burnei and about six or eight degrees latitude toward the north; its king and his subjects are Christians, converted by the fathers of our Society who live in Maluco.  To render homage to the crown of Castilla, he came to the court of Manila at the time when Gomez Perez de las Marinas, knight of the habit of Santiago, was governor of the islands.  On this journey he was accompanied by Father Antonio Marta, an Italian, the superior of the Society in the islands of Maluco, and by his companion, Father Antonio Pereira, [55] a Portuguese.  I had them all as guests in a house at Tigbauan, in the island of Panai, where for two years I was instructing those peoples, to their profit and my own satisfaction, as I shall later relate.  I do not mean Cian, but Siao, for that is the name of the island.  Cian is not an island, but the mainland between Malaca and Camboxa, contiguous with Great China and Cochin China.  By journeying northward from the two islands of Siao and Burnei, one may traverse in his course from island to island the whole extent of the Filipinas; and, by going east and west, their entire width.  Passing through Sarrangan, Iolo, and Taguima, which are three distinct islands, one reaches the great island of Mindanao, whence one comes to the island of Manila, the metropolitan see; as well as to Babuyanes, Hermosa Island, and the greater and lesser Lequios, which include many islands.  Of the more northern islands, besides those already named, those which are known and are most populous are:  Manila, Mindoro, Luban, Marinduque, Cabras, Tablas, Masbate, Capul, Ibabao, Leite, Bohol, Fuegos, Negros, Imares, Panai, Cagayan, Cuyo, Calamianes, Paravan—­besides many others which are less known, although populated, all of which will reach forty or more in number.  This is excluding other small uninhabited islands and some of fair size.  Among those islands that I have mentioned there are some much larger than Espana, as, for example, Manila and Burnei; and others which are certainly no smaller, as Mindanao and Calamianes.  Some are somewhat smaller, as Mindoro, Ibabao, and that of Negros; others very much smaller, as Leite, Sebu, and Panai, but all of them are well peopled, fertile, and rich, and not far distant from one another, and not one so small that it is not in reality large.

The island of Sebu, one of the smallest, would have, if we were to credit the statement of a certain author, a circumference of twelve leguas; but I myself have sailed along the coast of two-thirds of the island (it is triangular in shape), and assert that its circumference is more than fifty Spanish leguas.