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The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 27 of 55, 1636-37

Note 12 — The Conquest of Mindanao

James Alexander Robertson translation

The vessels which were in the river the first day could not be taken to the fort until the next day, the tide being low. There were more than thirty of these ships—large, medium-sized, and small—the greater part of them laden with a thousand things, especially five or six very large vessels from Java, full of wax, oil, rice, and other articles of merchandise. All our people had the benefit of these things, except of a certain quantity of wax, which was kept for the king, together with a great number of arms. There were eight cannon of bronze, with ladles; twenty-seven versos, a cast-iron pedrero, a great many chambers for versos, and more than a hundred muskets and arquebuses; and an infinite quantity of bullets, iron, powder, arrows, and sompites, a kind of little arrow which they shoot by means of blowpipes12—so poisonous that, unless very powerful remedies are soon applied, it kills in a few hours. Other implements of warfare were found in the powder-house, which we used as barracks for the Pampangos.

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