Australasia -- Description and travel; Australasia -- Discovery and exploration; Explorers -- Australasia
Magellan's first thought was for his sick men, and to give them
some chance of recovering he landed them on an uninhabited islet,
put up tents there, and had a pig killed to provide fresh meat. Two
days afterwards they saw a boat coming towards them and nine men
in it. These were very different from the wild-natured barbarians
of Guam. They were evidently familiar with the idea of white men
and white men's ships, being of course Malays. They were described
by Pigafetta as "reasonable men". Presents were exchanged, the
Spaniards giving red caps, mirrors, combs, bells, ivory, and cotton
cloths of Turkish manufacture. The Philippine Islanders offered
fish, a jar of palm wine, a few coconuts, and bunches of long
bananas. They promised further supplies of fresh food in a few days,
but in the meantime the coconuts seemed to the Spaniards perfectly
delicious, and Pigafetta wrote a long description of the tree and
its many useful products, and of the nuts with their rich pulp and
pleasant-tasting milk.
The name of St. Lazarus, because of the saint's day on which
they were first discovered, was given to the islands of this
archipelago.[29] The people encountered in the coast regions of
these western and southern Philippine Islands do not seem to have
been negritos or little negroes like those of the great Island of
Luzon, but all more or less of the Malayan-Mongolian stock. They had
very black straight hair which fell to the waist; went nearly naked
except for cloths round the waist--but some of these cloths were
beautifully embroidered; and in the waistbelt the men thrust large
daggers ornamented with gold.
[29] They were not called the Philippines until 1543, or thereabouts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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