3. We bought a quantity of sago [31] there, called by the Indians in Manila yoro. It is the heart of certain palm-trees; when soaked, it makes a yellow meal (properly it looks like yellow sand). Certain cakes are made from it which serve that people in lieu of bread; we lived on it for six months. Although it is a good food for Europeans, at times it fails to satisfy the hunger. Sometimes it seemed insipid food, but at others it tasted good. That tree is so flexible that it is never cut although it may be more than one vara in circumference. In Manila the Indians eat this food in time of need. That caused us considerable pity when we saw it, for really it is only pounded wood; but then it seemed to us to be a great dainty. That site [i.e., Totole] lay in a trifle over one degree north latitude. From ten until two the sun beat down fiercely, but, at that hour, a heavy shower fell every day, and there were terrible thunders and heavy winds that cooled off everything; and the nights were so cool that we had to put on heavy clothing. 4. Captain Navarro and the commander agreed between themselves to winter there. Our anger at that was great. Two other passengers and I tried to buy a boat from the king and to go away in it. Having made the agreement and paid the money, the king went back on his bargain, and kept more than one-half of the sum paid. He was a great rogue, although he treated me with much honor, and always seated me near himself. Some very ridiculous things happened to me with him. His palace was a little hut of bamboos and straw; but he bore himself there with an incredible majesty, and all who spoke to him prostrated themselves on the ground. He gave us a banquet, in which he offered us some sago cakes, and some very small fish cooked without a particle of salt. The prince died there, and I confess that I was astonished at the burial. The king and queen went to his funeral, the king with wooden shoes and the queen barefoot. When they returned, as the queen was going up to her house, a female servant washed her feet on the ladder. For twenty-four hours, some swivel-guns which stood at the palace door were fired every half hour. The king went into retreat, and would not grant audience for many days. He made an auction of all his possessions, in order to express his grief; but no one dared buy anything. We noted a very extraordinary thing there, namely, that the majority of those people did not care for silver. If we showed them an eight-real piece and a single real, they preferred the single real to the eight-real piece. As long as the single reals lasted we lived cheaply, but when we ran out of them, they refused to give us as much for an eight-real piece as they had given us for a single real. We suffered great hunger. One day I went to the beach, and encountered a negro cook of the commander, who was cooking some fish. I asked him to give me one or two of them, but he replied: