Chapter 6
Morga: He spent many days in making a few incursions into their land and attacks on their forts, but without any notable result, for the enemy were many and all good soldiers, with plenty of arquebuses
Rizal: Perhaps the arquebuses of the soldiers who had been killed in the combat with Figueroa, for although culverins and other styles of artillery were used in these islands, arquebuses were doubtless unknown.
***
Morga: The latter found themselves short of provisions without the possibility of getting them in the country on account of the war, inasmuch as the camp contained many men, both Spaniards and the native servants and boatmen, and it was not easy at all times to come and go from one part to another in order to provide necessities.
Rizal: These considerations might apply to the present [1890] campaigns in Mindanao.
***
Morga: On Friday, the twenty-first of the month of July, having reached an altitude of ten long degrees, we sighted an island to which the general gave the name of Madalena.
Rizal: Called by the natives Fatuhiwa, situated in 10º 40' south latitude, and west longitude 138º 15', one of the Marquesas group belonging to France.
***
Morga: There were more than four hundred Indians, white and of a very agreeable appearance, tall and strong, large-limbed, and so well made that they by far surpassed us.
Rizal: According to Captain Cook, cited by Wallace, these islanders surpassed all other nations in the harmony of their proportions and the regularity of their features. The stature of the men is from 175 to 183 cm.
***
Morga: Our fleet passed through the channel that separates the one island from the other, for all that we saw of these islands is clear sailing. On the west side of Sancta Cristina, a good port was found, and there the fleet anchored.
Rizal: The three islands are identified as Motane (probably), Hiwaoa, Tahuata or Tanata; the channel as the strait of Bordelais; and the "good port" as Vaitahu (Madre de Dios) (?).
***
Morga: Scarcely any of it, except a little husk, has to be thrown away.
Rizal: The breadfruit, which grows on the tree artocarpus incisa. It is called rima in Spanish, the name by which it was perhaps known throughout Polynesia.
***
Morga: They were named San Bernardo, ...
Rizal: Probably the Pukapuka group or Union Islands.
***
Morga: It lies in an altitude of ten and two-thirds degrees, and is about one thousand five hundred and thirty five leguas from Lima.
Rizal: Perhaps Sophia Island, which is about this distance from Lima.
***
Morga: ... we sighted an island of about ninety or one hundred leguas in circumference, which extends almost east southeast and west northwest, and lies about one thousand eight hundred leguas from Lima.
Rizal: Nitendi.
***
Morga: Within sight of this large island, and to the southeast of it, we saw another island of no great size. This must be the connecting link with the other islands.
Rizal: The small islets may have been the Taumako Islands; the shoals, Matema, and the "island of no great size," Vanikoro.
***
Morga: There is another fruit which grows on high trees, and resembles the pippin in its pleasing smell and savor; a great quantity of ginger grows wild there, as also of the herb chiquilite, from which indigo is made.
Rizal: Called kilitis in the Philippines, but we are not aware that indigo is made of it.
***
Morga: From the southeast to the north and then to the southwest, it is surrounded by large reefs.
Rizal: Probably Ponape.
***
Morga: On the fourteenth of the same month we sighted the cape of Espiritu Sancto, and on the fifteenth we anchored in the bay of Cobos.
Rizal: Dr. T. H. Pardo de Tavera in his Historia del descubrimiento de las regiones australes (Madrid, 1876), identifies this bay with the present Harbor of Laguán.
***
Morga: Accordingly they altered their course for that country, and after six days sighted the coast and country of Xapon, at a province called Toça
Rizal: On the island of Shikoku.
***
Morga: Their right ears were cut off, and they were paraded through the streets of Miaco and through those of the cities of Fugimen, Usaca, and Sacai,
Rizal: Fushimi, Osaka, and Sakai.
***
Morga: The governor sent Don Luis Navarrete...
Rizal: Called Alderete in Argensola, doubtless an error of the copyist.
***
Morga: These provinces I grant and bestow upon them for the services which they have rendered me and in payment for the property they have spent in my service, so that they may possess and enjoy them as their own, and do what they will with them while in my service.
Rizal: The same king wrote a letter of almost the same purport to Father Alonso Ximenez, which is reproduced by Aduarte.
***
Morga: On its west and southwest lie Pegu and Sian, and on the south and southeast, it is bounded by Camboja and Champan.
Rizal: This kingdom has disappeared. The ancient Ciampa, Tsiampa, or Zampa, was, according to certain Jesuit historians, the most powerful kingdom of Indochina. Its dominions extended from the banks of the Menam to the gulf of Ton-King. In some maps of the sixteenth century we have seen it reduced to the region now called Mois, and in others in the north of the present Cochinchina, while in later maps it disappears entirely. Probably the present Sieng-pang is the only city remaining of all its past antiquity.
***
Morga: It would have been a footing for some business,...
Rizal: From which to conquer the country and the king gradually, for the latter was too credulous and confiding.
***
Morga: It was resolved that, since Don Luys offered to make this expedition at his own expense with those men who chose to follow him, the plan should be carried out.
Rizal: Aduarte says: "The matter was opposed by many difficulties and the great resistance of influential persons in the community, but as it was to be done without expense to the royal treasury, all were overcome."
***
Morga: ... he set sail with his fleet from the bay, in the middle of July
Rizal: Aduarte says that the fleet left the bay on September 17.
***
Morga: The flagship sprung a leak, and the ships returned to the mouth of the bay above Miraveles ...
Rizal: The island of Corregidor, also called Mirabilis.
***
Morga: The almiranta, after having been refitted, left Cagayan, made the same voyage in the same storm, and anchored near the flagship, where it was lost with some men and its entire cargo.
Rizal: The almiranta was wrecked because of striking some shoals, while pursuing a Chinese craft with piratical intent. The Spanish ship opened in two places and the crew were thrown into the sea. Some were rescued and arrested by the Chinese authorities.
***
Morga: There are seven fathers, among whom is one called Father Riçio
Rizal: Undoubtedly the famous Father Mateo Ricci, called Li-Ma-Teou and Si-Thaí by the Chinese. He was born in Macerata in 1552, and died in Pekin in 1610. He was one of the greatest Chinese scholars of Europe, and wrote a number of works in Chinese, which were highly esteemed and appreciated by the Chinese themselves. He extended Christianity in the celestial empire more than anyone else, by his tolerance and keen diplomacy, by composing with great skill what he could not combat openly. This excited the wrath of the Dominicans, and gave rise to many controversies….Father Ricci was the associate of the famous Father Alessandro Valignani.
***
Morga: In Mindanao they divided the spoil, and agreed to get ready a larger fleet for the next year, and return to make war better prepared.
Rizal: This was the first piratical expedition made against the Spaniards by the inhabitants of the southern islands.
***
Morga: Therefore many towns of peaceful and subjected Indians revolted and withdrew to the tingues...
Rizal: From the Malay tingi, a mountain.
***
Morga: First, inasmuch as we have been informed that the English [sic] enemy, against whom this fleet has been prepared, lies in the bay of Maryuma...
Rizal: The present port of Mariveles, as is seen from Colin's map.
***
Morga: They told him that, as soon as the fleet sailed from the port of Cabit, the enemy, who lay in the direction of the port Del Fraile [of the Friar]
Rizal: Perhaps "in the direction of the island Del Fraile" is meant here, since no port of that name is known.
***
Morga: ... and having stowed their small boats, both ships had crossed to the other and sea side, and that they had seen him anchor after nightfall opposite the point of Valeitegui
Rizal: Now Punta de Fuego [i.e., Fire Promontory].
***
Morga: But the corsair had the worst of it all the time, for not more than fifteen of his men were left alive, and those badly maimed and wounded.
Rizal: The Dutch account of this combat says that their flagship carried fifty-three men before the fight, of whom only five were killed and twenty-six wounded.
***
Morga: It has been heard from various sources that he passed Borneo with only fifteen or sixteen men alive, and most of them maimed and wounded, and that a few days later, he was entirely wrecked not far from the Sunda.
Rizal: Van Noordt was not wrecked, as will be seen later in this work. He returned to Holland after many misfortunes and adventures.
***
Morga: The Indians wore the gold chains and other things of the ship around their necks, and then hung them to the trees and in their houses, like people who had no knowledge of their value.
Rizal: Hernando de los Rios Coronel in his Memorial y Relacion attributes both the loss of these two vessels and also that of the "San Felipe" to Don Francisco Tello's indolence. "For this same reason other vessels were lost afterward—one called 'Santa Margarita,' which was wrecked in the Ladrones, another, called 'San Gerónimo,' wrecked in the Catanduanes, near the channel of those islands, and a third which sailed from Cibú, called 'Jesus Maria.'" But the last-named, which sailed during Pedro de Acuña's administration, was not wrecked, as claimed by the above author.
***
Morga: They ran toward the Catenduanes, and entered a bay, called Catamban,
Rizal: Port of Baras (?).
***
Morga: Once, Cachilcota,
Rizal: Kachil Kota. Kachil is the title of the nobles. Kota or Kutà signifies fortress.
More from this series:
Rizal's Annotation of Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas: Chapter 1 of 8
Rizal's Annotation of Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas: Chapter 2 of 8
Rizal's Annotation of Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas: Chapter 3 of 8
Rizal's Annotation of Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas: Chapter 4 of 8
Rizal's Annotation of Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas: Chapter 5 of 8
Rizal's Annotation of Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas: Chapter 6 of 8
Rizal's Annotation of Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas: Chapter 7 of 8
Rizal's Annotation of Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas: Chapter 8 of 8
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