The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 34 of 55, 1519-1522; 1280-1605: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth centuryPigafetta, Antonio
History
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 34 of 55, 1519-1522; 1280-1605: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
Pigafetta, Antonio
Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources
Then they pound [499] the wood, and so
make the bread. They use that bread, which they call saghu [i.e.,
sago], almost as their sole food at sea. The men there go naked as do
the others [of those regions], but they are so jealous of their wives
that they do not wish us to go ashore with our drawers exposed; [500]
for they assert that their women imagine that we are always in
readiness.
A number of boats came from Tarenate daily laden with cloves, but, as
we were awaiting the king, we did not barter for anything except food.
The men who came from Tarenate were very sorry because we refused to
trade with them. On Sunday night, November twenty-four, and toward
Monday, the king came with gongs a-playing, and passed between the
ships, [whereat] we discharged many pieces. He told us that cloves
would be brought in quantity within four days. Monday the king sent us
seven hundred and ninety-one [501] cathils of cloves, without reckoning
the tare. The tare is to take the spices for less than they weigh, for
they become dryer daily. As those were the first cloves which we had
laden in our ships, we fired many pieces. Cloves are called ghomode
there; in Saranghani where we captured the two pilots, bongalauan;
[502] and in Malaca, chianche.
On Tuesday, November twenty-six, the king told us that it was not the
custom of any king to leave his island, but that he had left [his] for
the love that he bore the king of Castiglia, and so that we might go to
Spagnia sooner and return with so many ships that we could avenge the
murder of his father who was killed in an island called Buru, [503] and
then thrown into the sea. He told us that it was the custom, when the
first cloves were laden in the ships or in the junks, for the king to
make a feast for the crews of the ships, and to pray [504] their God
that He would lead those ships safe to their port. He also wished to do
it because of the king of Bachian and one of his brothers who were
coming to visit him. He had the streets cleaned. Some of us imagining
that some treachery was afoot, because three Portuguese in the company
of Francesco Seranno had been killed in the place where we took in
water, by certain of those people who had hidden in the thickets, and
because we saw those Indians whispering with our prisoners, declared in
opposition to some who wished to go to the feast that we ought not go
ashore for feasts, for we remembered that other so unfortunate one. We
were so urgent that it was concluded to send a message to the king
asking him to come soon to the ships, for we were about to depart, and
would give him the four men whom we had promised him, besides some
other merchandise. The king came immediately and entered the ships. He
told some of his men that he entered them with as great assurance as
into his own houses. He told us that he was greatly astonished at our
intention of departing so soon, since the limit of time for lading the
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