2.  The archipelago of Calamianes consists of an infinity and indeterminate number of islands, large and small, and most of them very fertile. [72] Those best known and best supplied with the products of commerce which might make them rich are [here] set down.  But their lack of attention [to these products] reduces the natives to a wretched and unhappy state.  The first island, and that which is first encountered from the course of Mindoro, about fifty leguas across from Luban, is Calamian the great, which gives name to the whole province.  It is commonly called Busuagan, taking that name from a principal village or settlement.  It is a large and pleasant island in the form of an oblong, eight long leguas in length and about four wide.  Its rivers are of great volume; there are sufficient mountains; and from that nature [of the land], there is an abundant yield of wax of superior quality, which is produced naturally, and without [human] labor, by the vast multitude of industrious bees.  The only work in it is the gathering of the honeycomb in its season (which is very securely fastened in the large, high, and leafy branches of the trees), by the sole effort of making fires with thick smoke, which compels those little animals, which defend their property at the cost of their lives, to flee in confusion.

3.  A more profitable product is the nest made by certain small black birds, which are mistakenly called swallows.  The material of which the nest is made, in order to lay and hatch their eggs, is yet unknown.  It is regarded as sure that its manufacture takes place in the breast or crop, whence issues a long filament.  Those filaments stick together because of their viscous nature, and at their extremities adhere to the rock.  Those nests are usually located in very overhanging and rough places, in such a way that the continual rains do not unfasten or destroy them, although the birds always endeavor to place them under shelter.  The shape of the nest is similar to that of the regular swallow, although smaller.  It is known that that filament is produced with difficulty.  It is like fine vermicelli, which is sometimes accompanied with drops of blood.  It is white and somewhat transparent, like ice.  It is prepared in various ways, but a soup resembling that of vermicelli, but of better taste, and incomparably more nourishing, is made with the broth from a substantial olio, or stew.  It is very useful for those who suffer from evacuations and dysentery; it corrects those ailments and is good as a mild and dissolvent food.  The Chinese esteem it highly, and generally pay, according to its scarcity or abundance, eight, nine, and sixteen pesos per cate, which contains twenty-one onzas.  They are very difficult to gather, for the birds always build them in craggy locations, in whose tortuous and precipitous caverns they are only obtained by descending a rope.  Some are obtained by climbing up bamboos, finding a rest for the feet on the knots, which are