Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 01).djvu/213

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
1493–1529]
JUNTA OF BADAJOZ
209

those voyaging through the spice region, as is discussed in the fourteenth chapter of the first book of his cosmography. He makes a distance of one hundred and eighty degrees from the Canarias to Catigara or the Metropol of the Chinese. Therefore subtracting the thirty-two degrees—the distance of the divisional line west [of the Cape Verde Islands], the line on the other side passes through the mouth of the river Ganges, which lies in one hundred and fifty degrees of longitude. Therefore Malaca, Zamatra, and Maluco fall within the demarcation of his Majesty.

Item: it can not be denied that the island of Gilolo, lying near the Maluco Islands, is the cape of Catigara, inasmuch as the companions of Magallanes journeyed westward upon leaving the strait discovered in fifty-four degrees of south latitude, sailing such a distance west and northeast that they arrived in twelve degrees of north latitude where were found certain islands, and one entrance to them. Then running southward four hundred leagues, they passed the Maluco islands and the coast of the island of Gilolo, without finding any cape on it. Then they took their course toward the Cabo Buena Esperanza [Good Hope] for Spain. Therefore then the cape of Catigara can only be the said island of Gilolo and the Malucos.

Item: Ptolemæus locates this cape of Catigara at the point of the gulf Magnus, next to the gulf of the Ganges and the Cresonensus bay, which conforms wholly to the account now discovered, so that the description and figure of Ptolemæus and the description and model found recently by those who came from the spice regions are alike, and not only alike