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with the governor's orders. For two days nothing was seen; and at the request of all the men, who cried out that we were taking them to destruction, she ordered me to steer from our settlement, located in ten and one-half degrees of latitude, to Manila. Thence I steered north northwest to avoid meeting islands on the way, since we were so ill prepared to approach any of them, with our men so sick that about fifty of them died in the course of the voyage and about forty there in the island. We continued our course short of provisions, navigating five degrees south and as many north, and meeting with many contrary winds and calms. When we reached an altitude of six long degrees north latitude, we sighted an island, apparently about twenty-five leguas in circumference, thickly wooded and inhabited by many people who resembled those of the Ladrones, and whom we saw coming toward us in canoes. From the southeast to the north and then to the southwest, it is surrounded by large reefs. [79] About four leguas west of it are some low islets. There, although we tried, we failed to find a suitable place to anchor; for the galliot and frigates which accompanied our ship had disappeared some days before. [80] From this place we continued the said course until we reached an altitude of thirteen and three-quarters degrees, and in the two days that we sailed west in this latitude, we sighted the islands of Serpana [i.e., Seypan] and Guan in the Ladrones. We passed between the two and did not anchor there, because we had no cable for lowering and hauling up the boat. This was the third of the month of January, one thousand five hundred and ninety-six. 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. [81] We reached there in such a state that only the goodness of God could have taken us thither; for human strength and resources would hardly have taken us a tenth of the way. We reached that place so dismantled and the crew so weak that we were a most piteous sight, and with only nine or ten jars of water. In this bay of Cobos the ship was repaired and the men recuperated as much as possible. On Tuesday, February second, we left the above port and bay, and on the tenth of the same month we anchored in the port of Cabite, etc.
