Cotton is raised abundantly throughout the islands.  It is spun and sold in the skein to the Chinese and other nations, who come to get it.  Cloth of different patterns is also woven from it, and the natives also trade that.  Other cloths, called medrinaques, are woven from the banana leaf. [119]

The islands of Babuytanes [120] consist of many small islands lying off the upper coast of the province of Cagayan.  They are inhabited by natives, whose chief industry consists in going to Cagayan, in their tapaques, with swine, fowls, and other food, and ebony spears, for exchange.  The islands are not assigned as encomiendas, nor is any tribute collected from them.  There are no Spaniards among them, as those natives are of less understanding and less civilized [than the others].  Accordingly no Christians have been made among them, and they have no justices.

Other islands, called the Catenduanes, lie off the other head of the island of Luzon, opposite the province of Camarines, in fourteen degrees of north latitude, near the strait of Espiritu Santo.  They are islands densely populated with natives of good disposition, who are all assigned to Spaniards.  They possess instruction and churches, and have an alcalde-mayor who administers justice to them.  Most of them cultivate the soil, but some are engaged in gold-washing, and in trading between various islands, and with the mainland of Luzon, very near those islands. [121]

The island of Luzon has a bay thirty leguas in circumference on its southern coast, situated about one hundred leguas from the cape of Espiritu Santo, which is the entrance to the Capul channel.  Its entrance is narrow, and midway contains an island called Miraveles [i.e., Corregidor] lying obliquely across it, which makes the entrance narrow.  This island is about two leguas long and one-half legua wide.  It is high land and well shaded by its many trees.  It contains a native settlement of fifty persons, and there the watchman of the bay has his fixed abode and residence.  There are channels at both ends of the island, where one may enter the bay.  The one at the south is one-half legua wide, and has a rock in its middle called El Fraile ["the friar"].  The one on the north is much narrower, but any ships of any draft whatever can enter and go out by both channels.  The entire bay is of good depth, and clean, and has good anchorages in all parts.  It is eight leguas from these entrances to the colony of Manila and the bar of the river.  A large harbor is formed two leguas south of Manila, with a point of land that shelters it.  That point has a native settlement called Cabit, [122] and it gives name to the harbor, which is used as a port for the vessels.  It is very capacious and well sheltered from the vendavals—­whether the southeast, and southwest, the west, and west-southwest, or the north-northeast and north winds.  It has a good anchorage, with a clean and good bottom.  There is a good entrance quite near the land, more