Part 17 (2/2)

[68] Called by the natives Fatuhiwa, situated in 10 40' south lat.i.tude, and west longitude 138 15', one of the Marquesas group belonging to France.--Rizal.

[69] According to Captain Cook, cited by Wallace, these islanders surpa.s.sed all other nations in the harmony of their proportions and the regularity of their features. The stature of the men is from 175 to 183 cm.--Rizal.

[70] The three islands are identified as Motane (probably), Hiwaoa, Tahuata or Tanata; the channel as the strait of Bordelais; and the ”good port” as Vaitahu (Madre de Dios) (?).--Rizal.

[71] The breadfruit, which grows on the tree artocarpus incisa. It is called rima in Spanish, the name by which it was perhaps known throughout Polynesia.--Rizal.

In the Bissayan Islands this tree was called colo. It reaches a height of about sixty feet. Its bark exudes a gummy sap, that is used for snaring birds. For want of areca, the bark is also used by the Indians as a subst.i.tute. The wood is yellow, and is used for making canoes, and in the construction of houses. See Delgado's Historia General, and Blanco's Flora de Filipinas.

[72] Probably the Pukapuka group or Union Islands.--Rizal.

[73] Perhaps Sophia Island, which is about this distance from Lima.--Rizal.

[74] Nitendi.--Rizal.

[75] The small islets may have been the Taumako Islands; the shoals, Matema, and the ”island of no great size,” Vanikoro.--Rizal.

[76] Called kilitis in the Philippines, but we are not aware that indigo is made of it.--Rizal.

Delgado (Historia, Manila, 1892) describes the wild amaranths which he calls quiletes (an American word, according to Blanco) doubtless the plant indicated in the text. The native generic name is haroma. There are numerous varieties, all edible.

[77] This word is untranslated by Stanley. Rizal conjectures that it may come from the Tagal word saga or jequiriti. But it may be a misprint for the Spanish sagu or sagui, ”sago.”

[78] Pingre's translation of the Descubrimiento de las Islas de Salomon says, p. 41: ”On the 17th October there was a total eclipse of the moon: this luminary, on rising above the horizon, was already totally eclipsed. Mendana, by his will, which he signed with difficulty, named as lady governor of the fleet his wife Dona Isabella de Barreto.” And in a note, he [i.e., Pingre] says that he calculated this eclipse by the tables of Halley: the immersion must have happened at Paris at 19 hours 6 minutes, and the moon had already been risen since 5 or 6 minutes; so that the isle of Sta. Cruz would be at least 13h. 2m. west of Paris, which would make it 184 degrees 30 minutes longitude, or at most 190 degrees, allowing for the Spaniards not having perceived the eclipse before sunset.--Stanley.

[79] Probably Ponape.--Rizal.

[80] The Descubrimiento de las Islas de Salomon says: ”The frigate was found cast away on the coast with all the crew dead. The galliot touched at Mindanao, in 10 degrees, where the crew landed on the islet of Camaniguin; and while wandering on the sh.o.r.e, and dying of hunger, met with some Indians, who conducted them to a hospital of the Jesuits. The corregidor of the place sent five men of this s.h.i.+p prisoners to Manila, upon the complaint of their captain, whom they had wished to hang. He wrote to Don Antonio de Morga the following letter: 'A Spanish galliot has arrived here, commanded by a captain, who is as strange a man as the things which he relates. He pretends to have belonged to the expedition of General Don Alvaro de Mendana, who left Peru for the Solomon isles, and that the fleet consisted of four s.h.i.+ps. You will perhaps have the means of knowing what the fact is.' The soldiers who were prisoners declared that the galliot had separated from the general only because the captain had chosen to follow another route.”--Stanley.

[81] Dr. T. H. Pardo de Tavera in his Historia del descubrimiento de las regiones australes (Madrid, 1876), identifies this bay with the present Harbor of Laguan.--Rizal.

[82] Lord Stanley translates the above pa.s.sage, which reads in the original ”que por quede della razon (si acaso Dios dispusiese de mi persona, o aya otra qualquiera ocasion; que yo, o la que lleuo faltemos), aya luz della,” etc., as ”that an account may remain (if perchance G.o.d should dispose of my life, or anything else should arise, or I or she that I take with me should be missing), and that it may give light,” etc. Rizal points out that the words ”o la que lleuo faltemos” do not refer to Dona Isabel de Barreto, but to a similar relation of the voyage that Quiros carried with him. We have accordingly adopted the latter's rendering, which is by far more probable.

[83] On the island of s.h.i.+koku.--Rizal.

[84] From the j.a.panese fune, boat. This may be etymologically equivalent to the English word funny, a kind of small boat.

[85] Lord Stanley connects this word, which he translates ”monks,”

with the Nembuds Koo. These, according to Engelbert Kaempfer, historian and physician at the Dutch emba.s.sy in j.a.pan, and who lived from 1651 to 1716, are devout fraternities who chant the Namanda, the abbreviation of ”Nama Amida Budsu” (”Great Amida help us”). The Dai-Nembudzsui are persons especially devoted to Amida's wors.h.i.+p. Rizal however refutes this, and derives Nambaji from the j.a.panese word Nambanjin, signifying ”dweller of the barbaric south,” as the missionaries came from the south.

[86] See note 85, ante, p. 119.

[87] The Spanish word is dojicos, which is etymologically the same as the French dogiques. This latter term is defined in The Jesuit Relations (Cleveland, 1896-1901), xxvii, p. 311, note 1, as a name given, in foreign missions, to those natives who instruct their countrymen. They officiated in the absence of the priests.

[88] Fus.h.i.+mi, Osaka, and Sakai.--Rizal.

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