vessel, that they may be sent from the kingdom. On leaving China the little party separate into two divisions, the father custodian and one other going to Macao, that they may there learn the Chinese language thoroughly, while the other two return to Manila, which is reached February 2, 1580 "where they were received by the governor and the rest with great joy, and their fault in having departed without leave was pardoned." The father custodian reports from Macao a rich harvest field in Cochin China.]
[The first ten chapters of the "Itinerary"[1] treat of the departure from Spain of the Franciscans (among whom was Father Martin Ignacio), in 1580, their arrival in New Spain, and matters relating to the New World. The voyage is by way of the Canaries, of which a brief description is given; thence to San Domingo or Española, passing on the way the island Desseada, or "land desired," and its neighboring islands—among the latter La Dominica, inhabited by the cannibal Caribs—and later Puerto Rico.
- ↑ The title-page of this "Itinerary," as well as some portions of the text (notably the first chapter), are widely different in the first edition of Mendoza's Historia (1585) from the Madrigal edition of 1586 (which we follow). See the Hakluyt Society's reprint (London, 1853) of Parke's translation of Mendoza, vol. ii, pp. 207–209, 232. The Franciscan here mentioned was Fray Martin Ignacio de Loyola, a relative of the Loyola who founded the Jesuit order.
The title-page reads: "Itinerary and epitome of all the notable things that lie on the way from España to the kingdom of China, and from China to España, returning by way of Eastern India, after having made almost the entire circuit of the world: Wherein are recounted the rites, ceremonies, and customs of the people of all those parts, and the richness, fertility and strength of many realms, with a description of them all. Compiled by the author himself, both from what he has seen, and from the account given him by the descalced religious of the order of St. Francis."
