The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commericial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century; [Vol. 1, no. 40]

42

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

[Vol. 40

that that had happened in those districts of India
some hundred and fifty years before their arrival.
In the same way one may imagine the passage of the
Malays to Borney to have occurred, and of the
Borneans to Manila; and that along with the arms
and temporal commerce would come some caciques,4
or priests of the cursed Mahometan religion, who
introduced that religion into the villages and maritime nations of these parts. As for me I can readily
believe that that great island of Borney in past centuries was continued on the northeast by Paragua,
and on the south by the lands near Mindanao, as is
indicated by the shoals and islets of Paragua on the
one side, and those called Santa Juana and other
islets and shoals which extend toward Jolo and
Taguima, opposite the point of La Caldera on the
Mindanao shore. If this assumption be true, as is
affirmed by aged Indians of those parts, the opporturomance, Cronica de Emperador Clarimundo (Coimbra, 1520).
Joao III appointed him captain of the fortress of San Jorge de
Mina, governor of the Portuguese possessions in Guinea, and
(1533) treasurer and general agent for Portuguese India. An
attempt to colonize a grant of land in Brazil (received 1539)
failed, and was abandoned. Barros died in 1570. The book
referred to in the text was his Decados, a history of Portuguese
India, written in fulfilment of a royal commission. The first
"decade" was completed in nine years (1552), the second soon
after, and the third ten years later. The fourth was left unfinished at his death, but was completed later by Diogo do Conto,
who added eight more volumes. A complete edition was printed
at Lisbon in twenty-four volumes (1778-88). Barros was a
conscientious writer and a good stylist. (New International Encyclopeedia.)
4 An apparent error for the word "kasis," and here wrongly
used (see VOL. xVI, p. 134, note I 6).
5 Thus (sur) in text; but, as a matter of fact, Paragua
stretches northeast from the north point of Borneo, and the Sulu
archipelago in the same direction from its northeast side.