Note 1 — Description of Filipinas Islands

3. Acapulco, in Mexico, which is the eastern port for the South Sea and for navigations from Nueva España to Filipinas, is in sixteen and one-half degrees of latitude. If in voyaging from Acapulco to Filipinas the ships sail in a straight line from the rising toward the setting sun, from east to west, without change of latitude, they will arrive at Baler,1 a village in the northern part of the further coast of Manila Island, which is in the same latitude as Acapulco. But usually, as soon as they set sail from Acapulco, they descend to the eleventh or the tenth parallel in order to find the winds with which they can navigate; then they again go northward and follow their former course to a point five hundred leguas from Manila, and one hundred from the Ladrones Islands—among which they pass, in a latitude of fifteen degrees. Thence they sail again to lower latitudes, descending to barely thirteen and one-half degrees—on which line is the Embocadero of San Bernardino, one hundred leguas from Manila. Thence the voyage is made between that same island of Manila—which extends as far as the Embocadero, and remains on the right hand—and other islands which lie on the left, to the port of Cabite which is two leguas from Manila. Ordinarily this voyage is made in three months, although the return trip is usually much longer—sometimes requiring more than seven months; while in this year, sixty-two, it lasted eight months.