or mats, which they call saguran; and their provisions are reduced to the flour made from a tree, called yoro [i.e., sago] and dried shellfish. Nearly all their pancos have two banks of oars, and two men for each oar. And with this slight though warlike equipment, with their harpoons, javelins, campilans, and arrows (in handling which weapons they are very dextrous), and with their swarming crews--composed of their slaves, who row under the lash; and of a multitude of pirates, who thus make their living, and traffic in their booty--they attack, among many, with the odds on their side, surround, and jump aboard, any Christian vessel which cannot defend itself on account of a small crew or the inaccurate firing of its cannon. [If they are caught in some bay by the Spanish who pursue them, they abandon their pancos, hide in the mountains, where they find enough to live on, and, as soon as the Spaniards depart, the pirates easily construct new boats and resume their raids. The pirate marine with the forts, troops, and cannon supported by the Spaniards make a heavy burden of expense on the treasury and on the people; and the amount thus spent in half a dozen years is enough to equip a strong naval expedition which could humble the insolence of the pirates. In view of this, and of the importance of Joló--which is the headquarters of the Moro pirates and of their government, and the general market for the Christian slaves and property which they carry away--Bernaldez advocates the immediate conquest of that island, and its repopulation from the more thickly settled parts of the northern islands. This can easily be done. Thousands of families whose members have been enslaved, especially in Bohol, are ready to join such an expedition, if leaders and provisions are supplied to them; and there are a multitude of skilled inter-island pilots--mestizos who are efficient and rich--who would act as leaders for the sake of their own profit and reward in such an enterprise. For ships they could use the government armed vessels, and the multitude of boats which ply among the islands; and sufficient rewards could be furnished to the soldiers in the distribution of the conquered lands and of the plunder which they would obtain. By this plan, the Moro piracies could be suppressed, and the islands thus gain peace from those fierce enemies.] Of the large Indian villages