match for arquebuses, which, without any other attention, is never extinguished.  The shoots resemble wild artichokes while they are tender.  There is a plant with leaves after the shape and fashion of the ivy, which is a certain species of pepper which they call buyo, the use of which is common throughout the whole archipelago; and it is so excellent a specific against ulcerated teeth that I do not remember ever having heard it said that any native suffered from them, nor do they need to have them pulled.  It is a good stimulant for the stomach, and leaves a pleasant odor in the mouth.

There is a bird which they call tabon, a little larger than a partridge; and it buries its eggs, which are as large as goose eggs, to the number of eighty or a hundred, half an estado deep in the sand of the bays of the sea.  They are all yolk, without any white, which is an indication of their great heat.  Accordingly, the mother does not sit upon them, and they hatch, and the birds scratch their way out from the sand.  When the bird has come out it is as large as a quail, and goes about picking up its food as other birds do after they are grown.  I have seen this with my own eyes, and there must be other eyewitnesses of it in this court.  So marvelous is the character of these birds.  I pass over many other peculiarities for fear of tiring your Majesty.

There are many good and savory wild fruits there.  The ordinary food in those islands is rice, as it is over all Asia and the neighboring islands; and I dare assert that more people are supported in the world by rice than by wheat.  There is a great deal of sugar, which is usually worth four reals the arroba, or less; and the Chinese bring so much rock sugar, which they call cande, that it is ordinarily worth eight reals an arroba, or less.

In that part of the island of Mindanao which faces the south, as I have said above, the Indians are rebellious; and it is they who have done, and still do, great damage to the others.  They have taken up the doctrine of Mahoma and are friendly with the Dutch.  As they have not been given into slavery, they are not pacified; and this is one of the most important matters there, and deserves the application of a remedy.

Chapter II.  Of the ministers and religious instruction in the islands, and those who have been converted to our holy Catholic faith, and those who pay tribute.

The island of Luzon, in the archbishopric and the two bishoprics, has fifty-nine encomiendas, and in that of Nueva Segovia, which is the most northerly, there are twenty-six; in that of Camarines, which is the most easterly of the islands, there are thirty—­in all, one hundred and fifteen.  In the bishopric of Cibu there are seventy-one, which make, in all, one hundred and eighty-six encomiendas of Indians.  They comprise 130U938 tributarios in all; each tributario includes husband and wife, and thus at least four persons are reckoned, including children and slaves