As regards all that I shall be able to state of the products of commodities which the said islands yield, in order that every one may know that I do not advocate something that is not so, I recommend (although various persons have written on the subject) to the curious the two books of the reverend master Father Pedro Murillo Velarde, of the Society of Jesus, entitled Historia de las Islas Philipinas and Historia geografica of the same Philipinas Islands. These are worthy of attention, and in regard to what is theoretical can furnish much light; as for what concerns the practical, and the experience which I have acquired at the cost of much money, labor, and application, I must make evident all the following. First: We must consider what commodities or products these islands contain or produce, as well as the fact that we do not have to build castles in the air or proceed on fanciful assumptions; all that I assert shall be from my own knowledge. Second: Whether the products or commodities can be used, and to explain and demonstrate how we can avail ourselves of them; and all that I shall say on this subject will proceed from the long experience which I have had. Third: The advantages and benefits which will redound to his Majesty, to the Spaniards settled in those regions, and to the Indians themselves. The first point: As the products of the Philipinas Islands are enumerated by the reverend Father Murillo (whom may God keep in Paradise), whom I have cited, and those of each island separately, in order not to extend this little work needlessly I will state the most important ones, which are the following: Rice, sugar, cotton (of choice quality and very fine), indigo, sulphur, siguey, balate, wax, pepper, coffee, tortoise-shell, mother-of-pearl; gold, mines of iron, and mines of copper (like that of Japon); tobacco, brazil-wood [sibucao], and pearl-fisheries; oil, cacao, birds'-nests, and ebony wood; lead (I believe that, as for the soil in some parts of Bisayas, [64] it melts into lead, just as in the island of Mauricius, which belongs to the French, it melts into iron); cocoanuts, which produce abundance of oil; [65] horses; deer and buffaloes, from which the people make what they call tapa [i.e., dried beef], and also use the sinews; and bichuca, or rattans. [66]