adorned and painted [i.e., tattooed] in various colors.  Legaspe left a guard there and went to occupy Luzon, one hundred and fifty leguas from Zebu.  He fought the barbarians, whom, after the surprise of our ships, weapons, and faces had worn off, the same novelty encouraged.  Legaspe anchored in a bay four leguas wide, which shows an island midway in its entrance, now called Marivelez.  The bay has a circuit of thirty leguas to the city of Manila, and is eight leguas wide from north to east.  The inhabitants of that city resisted him with greater courage than the Pintados, for they had artillery and a fort.  But after the Spaniards had taken that, the defenders of it surrendered.  This was done quickly, and allowed no time for the inhabitants to unite.  Thus did Legaspe enter Manila, a place fortified by nature.  At one point of it (which is surrounded by the water of the bay) is a river of considerable volume, whose source is the great Lake of Vay [Bay], five leguas distant.  This point, narrow and slender at first, becomes wider immediately, for the seashore turns toward the southwest, and the bank of the river toward the east, so that a very considerable space is left for the city.  The city is entirely surrounded with water, except that part between the west and south.  Legaspe founded the city then with wooden buildings, for wood is produced abundantly in those regions.  The roofs of the houses were covered with nipa leaves, which resemble our mace-reed, [279] and which form a sufficient defense against the rains.  It is, however, an inflammable material, and is the occasion of the great fires that have happened there so often.  Luzon is more densely populated than any of the many islands—­which are called Filipinas in honor of King Filipo II, and which, as is affirmed, number eleven thousand.  Luzon has a circumference of three hundred and fifty leguas.  Beyond the bay it runs one hundred leguas to the north, as far as Nueva Segovia; from the beginning of that province (namely, Cape Bojador), it runs for thirty leguas east to the promontory of El Engano.  Thence the coast runs south for eighty leguas, and then with another changed direction for forty leguas to what they call Embocadero ["the channel"], that is, the strait opposite the island Tandaya, which is distant eighty more leguas from the bay.  Consequently the island has the shape of a square; it has many harbors, but few capacious ports.  Manila is in slightly more than fourteen degrees of northern latitude, and in longitude (reckoning from the Canarias) one hundred and sixty.  The most northern part of Luzon lies in nineteen degrees [of latitude].  With the sea between them, the great kingdom of China lies on that side of it, seventy leguas away; while the islands of Japon lie to the northeast, at a distance of two hundred and fifty leguas.  On the east is the open ocean, and on the south the greatest of the archipelagos of the ocean, which is divided into live archipelagos.  These are broken up into so many