equinoctial line, which cuts the islands of Maluco. There are many
others on the other side of the line, in the tropic of Capricorn,
which extend for twelve degrees in south latitude. [40] The ancients
affirmed that each and all of them were desert and uninhabitable, [41]
but now experience has demonstrated that they deceived themselves;
for good climates, many people, and food and other things necessary
for human life are found there, besides many mines of rich metals,
with precious gems and pearls, and animals and plants, which nature
has not stinted.

It is impossible to number all the islands--counting larger and
smaller--of this vast archipelago. Those comprised in the name and
government of Filipinas, number about forty large islands, besides
other smaller ones, all consecutive. The chiefest and best known are
Luzon, Mindoro, Tendaya, [42] Capul, Burias, Mazbate, Marinduque,
Leite, Camar, Ybabao, Sebu, Panay, Bohol, Catenduanes, Calamianes,
Mindanao, and others of less renown.

The first island conquered and colonized by the Spaniards was
Sebu. [43] From there the conquest was started and continued in all
the neighboring islands. Those islands are inhabited by people,
natives of the same islands, called Viçayas; or by another name,
Pintados--for the more prominent of the men, from their youth, tattoo
their whole bodies, by pricking them wherever they are marked and then
throwing certain black powders over the bleeding surface, the figures
becoming indelible. But, as the chief seat of the government, and the
principal Spanish settlement, was moved to the island of Luzon--the
largest island, and that one nearest and opposite to Great China and
Japon--I shall treat of it first; for much that will be said of it is
similar in the others, to each of whose particulars and distinctive