they named Los Jardines, or "The Gardens," from their luxuriant foliage. January 23, 1543, they passed a small island, whose inhabitants hailed them in good Castilian, saying "Buenos dias, matalotes"[1] [meaning to say "Good morning, sailors"], for which the island was named Matalotes. The next island passed they named Arrecifes or Reefs, the significance of which is apparent. February 2, they anchored in a beautiful bay which they called Málaga [Baganga] and the island Cesárea Karoli [Mindanao], "which the pilots, who afterwards sailed around it, declared to have a circuit of three hundred and fifty leagues." After a month's residence on the island, they left in search of the island of Mazagua, but contrary weather forced them to anchor at an island named Sarrangar and by them called Antonio,[2] where they had trouble with the natives, who were attacked by the Castilians under command of Alvarado. The people defended themselves valiantly with "small stones, poles, arrows, and mangrove cudgels as large around as the arm, the ends sharpened and hardened in the fire," but were finally vanquished; they abandoned this island afterwards and went to Mindanao. "Upon capturing this island we found a quantity of porcelain, and some bells which are different from ours, and which they esteem highly in their festivities," besides "perfumes of musk, amber,
- ↑ Antonio Galvano explains this by declaring that he had in 1538 (being then the Portuguese governor of the Moluccas) sent Francisco de Castro to convert the natives of the Philippines to the Catholic faith. On the island of Mindanao he was sponsor at the baptism of six kings, with their wives, children, and subjects. See Galvano's Tratado (Hakluyt Society reprint of Hakluyt's translation, Discoveries of the World, pp. 208, 233).
- ↑ See Col. doc. inéd. Ultramar, ii, p. xvii.
