That islet is five or six leguas in circuit, and lies in nine degrees of latitude.  It is well supplied with food and good water, of which there are many springs, called bito.  They are always in the same condition, and do not increase with the rains, nor diminish with the dryness of the seasons.  It is remarkable for one thing—­in which it is different from that coast of Caragha, and the other islands—­namely that no monkeys are reared there nor can they be reared if brought there, for they die immediately.  During the rainy season, the earth turns red, and is so sticky that when one walks it tears the shoes from the feet.  There is a remarkable tree that is called nono.  It springs from the root of another large and shady tree.  As it increases in size, it embraces it, and by sucking the moisture and nourishment from it, becomes strong.  When it becomes so strong that it can grow alone, it casts away that tree, and despises that which was its staff, thus treating it badly until it withers—­a living image of the children of this age.

Coming to the peculiarities of that coast, we cannot fail to mention one, namely, that there are trees of the hugest size, so tall that one would believe that they are trying to reach up into the clouds.  The Indians are wont to make their dwellings in them, specially those Indians called cimarrones. [57] They pay no tribute, so that their trees serve them as a fort in which to defend themselves from the Spanish soldiers of the fort of Caragha.  The manner of building those dwellings is as follows:  They look out a very stout, high tree; they trim off all the branches up to the height where the floor of the house is to be.  They put in some cross-bars, which cross on the trimmed-off branches.  They fix them with large timbers in the manner of an enclosure, with which the trampling-ground is made.  Then they enclose that floor with the same timbers, in the manner of a parapet, and cover it with a little nipa.  The branches above are also protected from the rain and inclemencies of the weather.  Thus the house is made so strong that it resists any invasion.  It has often cost our soldiers considerable trouble to get those people; for those houses have no approach except certain light ladders made from rattans tied together.  In those houses they keep all their possessions, and there live their children and wives, who all help to fight.  They have made a place by which to retire when pursued closely, preparing a passage from branch to branch in order to escape.  Those houses are so capacious that one of our religious lay brothers, who had been a soldier in the presidio of Caragha, said that he had seen one that would hold sixty persons.  On climbing into another out of curiosity, he saw three women hanging—­a mother and her daughters.  As well as could be guessed, the mother had hanged the girls and then herself, in order not to fall into the power of the Castilians. [58]

Calamianes or Taitai