between 13° and 20° 50' N.--E.]

No order or form of government was observed to subsist among these
natives of the Ladrones, but every one seemed to live according to his
own humour or inclination. The men were entirely naked, the hair both of
their heads and beards being black, that on their heads so long as to
reach down to their waists. Their natural complexion is olive, and they
anoint themselves all over with cocoa-nut oil. Their teeth seemed
coloured artificially black or red, and some of them wore a kind of
bonnet made of palm leaves. The women are better favoured and more
modest than the men, and all of them wore some decent coverings made of
palm leaves. Their hair was black, thick, and so very long as nearly to
trail on the ground. They seemed careful industrious housewives,
spending their time at home in fabricating mats and nets of palm leaves,
while the men were occupied abroad in stealing. Their houses are of
timber, covered with boards and great leaves, and divided within into
several apartments. Their beds are of mats laid above each other, and
they use palm leaves by way of sheets. Their only weapons are clubs, and
long poles headed with bone. Their food consists of cocoa-nuts, bananas,
figs, sugar-canes, fowls, and flying-fishes. Their canoes are oddly
contrived and patched up, yet sail with wonderful rapidity, the sails
being made of broad leaves sewed together. Instead of a rudder they use
a large board, with a staff or pole at one end, and in sailing, either
end of their canoes is indifferently used as head or stern. They paint
their canoes all over, either red, white, or black, as hits their fancy.
These people are so taken with any thing that is new, that when the
Spaniards wounded several of them with their arrows, and even pierced
some quite through, they would pluck out the arrows from their wounds,
and stare at them till they died. Yet would they still continue to
follow after the ships, to gaze upon them as they were going away, so