to the book is stated here.  I have recounted this to your Grace, because of the statements in your letter, namely, that people considered them as lost, and so that so singular a case may be known there.

Now the Dutch make the voyage more quickly and more safely, going and coming, by way of India, but not touching at its ports or coasts, until they reach the islands of the Javas [39]—­Java major and Java minor—­and Samatra, Amboino, and the Malucas.  Since they know the district so well, and have experienced the immense profits ensuing to them therefrom, it will be difficult to drive them from the Orient, where they have inflicted so many losses in both spiritual and temporal affairs.

¶ Relation of the Filipinas Islands and of their natives, antiquity, customs, and government, both during the period of their paganism and after their conquest by the Spaniards, and other details.

¶ Chapter Eighth

The islands of the eastern Ocean Sea, adjacent to farther Asia, belonging to the crown of Espana, are generally called, by those who navigate thither by way of the demarcation of Castilla and Castilla’s seas and lands of America, “the Western Islands;” for from the time that one leaves Espana, he sails in the course of the sun from east to west, until he reaches them.  For the same reason they are called “Eastern Islands” by those who sail from west to east by way of Portuguese India, each of them circumscribing the world by voyaging in opposite directions, until they meet at these islands, which are numerous and of varying size; they are properly called Filipinas, and are subject to the crown of Castilla.  They lie within the tropic of Cancer, and extend from twenty-four degrees north latitude to the equinoctial line, which cuts the islands of Maluco.  There are many others on the other side of the line, in the tropic of Capricorn, which extend for twelve degrees in south latitude. [40] The ancients affirmed that each and all of them were desert and uninhabitable, [41] but now experience has demonstrated that they deceived themselves; for good climates, many people, and food and other things necessary for human life are found there, besides many mines of rich metals, with precious gems and pearls, and animals and plants, which nature has not stinted.

It is impossible to number all the islands—­counting larger and smaller—­of this vast archipelago.  Those comprised in the name and government of Filipinas, number about forty large islands, besides other smaller ones, all consecutive.  The chiefest and best known are Luzon, Mindoro, Tendaya, [42] Capul, Burias, Mazbate, Marinduque, Leite, Camar, Ybabao, Sebu, Panay, Bohol, Catenduanes, Calamianes, Mindanao, and others of less renown.