THE PHILIPPINES TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 395 



them fall to his share, thought themselves happy, they looked upon 

 them as saints, and valued them as relics of inestimable value. The 

 governor, counsellors, townsmen, religious persons and soldiers, went, 

 as it were to snatch a Japanese, either sound or sick. I don't ques- 

 tion but it much edified the Chinese infidels that looked on; for tho' 

 they observe and take notice of our faults, yet at that time they were 

 sensible of the wonderful efficacy of our holy law. The presence of so 

 many witnesses, and such as they are, ought to make our carriage and 

 deportment such, as may make them by it know and glorify our God; 

 a point S. Thomas proposes and treats of in his opusc. to the churches 

 of Brabant. I heard afterwards some Europeans behaved themselves not 

 so well towards the banished people of Ireland." 



The date line gave trouble in those days, as it has since. On reaching 

 the Portuguese possessions in Macasar, he found that his Thursday was 

 their Friday, a circumstance that caused some affliction to his conscience, 

 for he had eaten flesh that day for dinner. With true professional inge- 

 nuity he overcame the difficulty by eating fish for supper and 'as to the 

 divine office, tho' I was not obliged to all that of Friday, yet having time 

 to spare, perform'd for both days.' 



Volume IV. of this same collection of 'Voyages and Travels', which 

 generally goes by the name of its publisher, Churchill, contains the 

 'Voyage Around the World' by Dr. John Francis Gemilli Careri. This 

 author gives a longer and more detailed account of the Philippine 

 Islands, and it is especially valuable for its description of all the various 

 islands, their natural resources and the customs of the natives. He 

 mentions seven localities where gold is found, and states on the authority 

 of the governor of Manila that the annual production of gold gathered 

 without the help of fire or quicksilver amounted to 200,000 pieces of 

 eight. "As for Manila, the author of nature placed it so equally between 

 the wealthy kingdoms of the east and west, that it may be accounted one 

 of the greatest places of trade in the world. I am of the opinion that 

 there are no such plentiful islands in the world." The author fully 

 justifies his opinion by the statistics he gives of the cotton, tobacco, 

 hemp, amber, civet, wax, pearls, quicksilver, sulphur and rare woods 

 and medicinal herbs too numerous to mention here. The whole book 

 is worth publishing, as there are nearly one hundred pages of the produc- 

 tions, history, geography, ethnology and natural history of our new 

 possessions as they were in 1697. Most of it appears reliable, for Gemilli 

 is careful to distinguish what he sees from what he hears, and, although 

 he includes many incredible stories, it is not uu critically. For example, 

 he has an account of a leaf which when it ripens becomes an insect and 

 flies off. A diagram is given of this, showing how the stem becomes the 

 head, the mid-vein the body and the side fibers the legs of the insect, 

 and the statement is sworn to by the provincial of St. Gregory's, an 

 eye-witness of the metamorphosis, and attested by a bishop. Still the 



