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Thus it will be seen that this first and last attempt of Filipinos to govern Moros did not result in complete success. Baldomero Aguinaldo made a subsequent attempt to open communication with the Sultan of Joló, authorizing him to establish in all the rancherias of Mindanao and Joló a government in accordance with a decree duly transmitted.
In these they carry their betel-nut outfits, tobacco, and the like. Probably no wild tribe in Mindanao has received so much mention in histories, reports, and books of travel as have the Mandaya, but these references have been, in the main, so vague and often so misleading that they are of little value for our purposes.
The capital is named Mindanao, like the island, being on the south-west side, two miles from the sea, on the bank of a small river, in lat. 7° N. The houses are built on posts, fourteen to twenty feet high, consisting only of one floor, but divided in many rooms by partitions.
We came first to anchor on the N.E. side of the island, but learning from the natives that the city of Mindanao was on the W. side, we again set sail and anchored on the 4th July on the S.W. side of a very deep bay in fifteen fathoms, the land within the bay on the E. side being very high and woody, but watered by several rivers.
The little fort is considered as a sufficient protection for the fishermen and small vessels against the pirates, who inhabit the island of Basilan, which is in sight from Mindanao, and forms the southern side of the straits of the same name. It is said that about seven hundred inhabit it.
For that Island lyeth very convenient for Trading either to the Spice-Islands, or to the rest of the Philippine Islands: since as its Soil is much of the same nature with either of them, so it lies as it were in the Center of the Gold and Spice Trade in these parts; the Islands North of Mindanao abounding most in Gold, and those South of Meangis in Spice.
These are three small Islands that abound with Gold and Cloves, if I may credit my Author Prince Jeoly, who was born on one of them, and was at that time a Slave in the City of Mindanao. But of Prince Jeoly I shall speak more hereafter. These Islands are as yet probably unknown to the Dutch, who as I said before, indeavor to ingross all the Spice into their own Hands.
Celebes, or Bugis-land, with a distinct language and character, will probably be found to follow the same rule; and the Philippines, including Mindanao, according to Marsden, possess the same language, though altered and modified into the Tagala tongue.
One and a half miles from the bay we passed over a bank, the least water on which was ten fathoms on a sandy bottom, and on which a vessel might anchor. The wind shortly after failed us, and we drifted with the tide for some hours, in full view of the island of Mindanao, which is bold and picturesque.
Perhaps the government was a bit patriarchal, but it was good, clean, and wholesome and every one profited by it. Our newest possession, the Philippine Archipelago, in a way, is also our oldest, for the islands were discovered by Ferdinand Magellan in 1521, about twenty-nine years after the great discovery of Columbus. Magellan called at several islands, among them Mindanao and Cebú.
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