LAUIER] RELATIONS OF CHINESE TO THE PHILIPPINES 267 



Antonio de Morga, an eye-witness, gives an interesting and 

 graphic account of these events in his temporary records. 1 It reads 

 as follows : 



In the month of this year of 1603 there entered into the Bay of Manila 

 a ship from Great China, in which, as the sentinels announced, there came 

 three great mandarins, with their insignia as such, and they came out of the 

 ship and entered the city with their suite. They went straight, in chairs 

 carried on men's shoulders, very curiously made of ivory and fine woods and 

 gilding, to the royal buildings of the High Court, where the governor was 

 waiting for them with a large suite of captains, and soldiers throughout the 

 house and in the streets where they had to pass. When they arrived at the 

 doors of the royal buildings, they were set down from their chairs, and en- 

 tered on foot, leaving in the street their banners, equipage, lances, and other 

 insignia of much state which they had brought; and went as far as a large 

 hall, well fitted up, where the governor received them standing up, the man- 

 darins making many low bows and courtesies after their fashion, and the 

 governor answering them in his. They told him, by means of the interpre- 

 ters, that the king had sent them, with a Chinaman whom they had brought 

 with them in chains, to see with their own eyes an island of gold, which he 

 had informed their king was named Cabit, 2 and was close to Manila, which 

 was in the possession of no one; and that he had asked the king for a 

 quantity of ships, and that he would bring them back laden with gold ; and if 

 it was not as he had stated, let them punish him with death ; and they had 

 come to ascertain the truth of the matter, and to inform their king of it. 

 The governor replied to them in few words beyond giving them a welcome, 

 and inviting them to rest in two houses which had been prepared for them 

 within the city, where they and their people could lodge, and that their busi- 

 ness would be talked of later. Upon this they went out again from the royal 

 buildings, and at the door mounted their chairs on the shoulders of their 

 servants, who wore colored clothing, and they were carried to their lodgings, 

 where the governor ordered them to be abundantly provided with whatever 

 they required for their maintenance during the time of their stay. 



The arrival of these mandarins seemed suspicious, and [it was thought] that 

 they came with a different intention from that which they announced, because, 

 for people of so much understanding as the Chinese possess, to say that the 

 king sent them on this business seemed to be a fiction. Amongst the Chinese 

 themselves, who came to Manila about the same time with eight merchant 

 ships, and those who were established in the city, it was said that these man- 



1 Hakluyt edition, p. 217. 



' That is, Cavite, called in the writings of the Chinese Chia-i (in Cantonese, 

 Kia-yit), which is the city of Cavite. The Tung hsi yang k'ao (chap. 5, p. 

 3 b) remarks that it was originally only a mountain, and that the Spaniards 

 had founded a city there from fear of the Red-haired (i, c, the Dutch), and 

 concealed gingals behind the walls; in case pirates appeared, they repulsed 

 them by means of these gingals, but did not venture to oppose them in open 

 attack. According to the same passage, the mountain Ki-i shan mentioned 

 by Chang-Yi as the gold mountain is a mistake for Kia-i or Kia-yit, and 

 would therefore be identical with the mountains around Cavite. This agrees 

 perfectly with the statement of De Morga. 



