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But now the care exercised by the Spaniards has made them so abundant, that they yield in no way to Nouvelle Espagne. "There are also many civet-cats, and all sorts of fruit as in China. They yield considerable quantities of honey and wax.
Civet-cats or musk-cats are so plenty that three may be bought for one piece of gold. This city produces very little merchandise for purchase, except precious stones, and especially rubies, which are brought thither from another city named Cassela, thirty days journey towards the east, where also they procure other precious stones called smaragdes or emeralds.
For he embarking himself, to set sail with a west-north-east wind, everyone in heaps did cast into the ship gold, silver, rings, jewels, spices, drugs, and aromatical perfumes, parrots, pelicans, monkeys, civet-cats, black-spotted weasels, porcupines, &c. He was accounted no good mother's son that did not cast in all the rare and precious things he had.
In another hall beside that one, which was used by the Chamberlains, Raffaello da Urbino painted in certain tabernacles some Apostles in chiaroscuro, large as life and very beautiful; and over the cornices of that work Giovanni portrayed from life many parrots of various colours which his Holiness had at that time, and also baboons, marmosets, civet-cats, and other strange creatures.
He says that "the natives of Mindanao carry about civet-cats in cages, and sell them in the islands; and they take the civet from them, and let them go again." The same species is common in the Philippines and in all the large islands of the Indo-Malay region.
A few plants were introduced into the gardens of Manila about fifty years ago, since which time it has been spread all over the island, as is supposed, by the civet-cats, which, after swallowing the seeds, carry them to a distance before they are voided. The coffee of commerce is obtained here from the wild plant, and is of an excellent quality.
They likewise brought civet for sale, the skins of civet-cats, monkies, large and small baboons of various sorts; and these last being very plenty they sold them cheap, or for something not exceeding ten marquets in value, for each; and the ounce of civet for what was not worth more than forty or fifty marquets; not that they sold their commodities by weight, but I judged the quantity to be about an ounce.
They take honey, manufactured wax, palm and Castilian wine, civet-cats, large tibors in which to store their tea, glass, cloth, and other curiosities from Espana. Some Portuguese vessels sail to Manila annually during the monsoon of the vendavals, from Maluco, Malaca, and India. Purchases of all the above are made in Manila, and paid in reals and gold.
A few plants were introduced into the gardens of Manila, about fifty years ago, since which time it has been spread all over the island, as is supposed by the civet-cats, which, after swallowing the seeds, carry them to a distance before they are voided. The coffee of commerce is obtained here from the wild plant, and is of an excellent quality.
Now, continuing his work, he also painted a hall, wherein were some figures of the Apostles and other saints in tabernacles, executed in terretta; and there he caused to be made by Giovanni da Udine, his disciple, who has no equal in the painting of animals, all the animals that Pope Leo possessed, such as the chameleon, the civet-cats, the apes, the parrots, the lions, the elephants, and other beasts even more strange.
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