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half degrees of latitude. If in voyaging from Acapulco to Filipinas the ships sail in a straight line from the rising toward the setting sun, from east to west, without change of latitude, they will arrive at Baler, [37] a village in the northern part of the further coast of Manila Island, which is in the same latitude as Acapulco. But usually, as soon as they set sail from Acapulco, they descend to the eleventh or the tenth parallel in order to find the winds with which they can navigate; then they again go northward and follow their former course to a point five hundred leguas from Manila, and one hundred from the Ladrones Islands--among which they pass, in a latitude of fifteen degrees. Thence they sail again to lower latitudes, descending to barely thirteen and one-half degrees--on which line is the Embocadero of San Bernardino, one hundred leguas from Manila. Thence the voyage is made between that same island of Manila--which extends as far as the Embocadero, and remains on the right hand--and other islands which lie on the left, to the port of Cabite which is two leguas from Manila. Ordinarily this voyage is made in three months, although the return trip is usually much longer--sometimes requiring more than seven months; while in this year, sixty-two, it lasted eight months. Distribution of these islands 4. Although they are innumerable, hardly more than forty of the inhabited Filipinas Islands are subject to the monarchy of Espana. The first and chief of these, and the head of all, is that of Luzon. It is large, being almost three hundred and fifty leguas in circumference; and has more than twenty bays and ports where ships of all sizes can anchor. It is the frontier [of the islands] toward Great China, which is a hundred leguas distant from Manila. The island lies between thirteen and one-half and nineteen degrees of latitude, and it has the form of a square with two narrow arms--one of which extends from south to north, the other from west to east. 5. In that which points northward lie, on its western coast, four distinct conquered provinces. The first and nearest of these on the bay of Manila (and belonging to the archbishopric of that name), and in latitude 15 deg., is Pampanga; it is very populous, and abounds in rice and other products of the soil; and it contains some gold-placers. Its natives have the reputation of being the best and bravest, and most faithful to the royal crown [of all in the
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