Chapter 12
The Frigate Comes Back
Butuan, Negros and Bohol
From Bohol, Legazpi sent a patache to Butuan, on Mindanao, and a frigate to scout Negros and Cebu. The frigate came back after three weeks, on Holy Saturday, with news that Cebu was rich and crowded, and on Easter Sunday, 22 April 1565, the fleet sailed for Cebu to found a settlement.
March 1565
The *San Juan* reaches Butuan, on the north coast of Mindanao, and finds two Muslim junks from Luzon anchored in the river. Their traders are delighted with the Spaniards’ silver *tostones*, Mexican coins. They give one piece of gold for six of silver, and say they have much more gold if the Spaniards have more silver.
Then the soldiers find earth packed inside some of the cakes of wax they have bought, and they hear that the junks are full of gold. They beg the captain to let them seize the junks, and he very nearly does. The treasurer and the factor stop him: it would “stir up the land and set it against us.” The *San Juan* comes back with a little gold, wax and cinnamon, and Legazpi scolds its captain for leaving his task unfinished.
Early April 1565
The frigate, meanwhile, is lost. The chief pilot, Esteban Rodríguez, has fifteen men aboard and the Bornean pilot to guide them. A tide sweeps them into a strait and out the far end, and to get back they must sail all the way round a great island, a hundred and fifty leagues around. It is Negros.
On the way they chase a prau whose crew run it ashore and hide. In it they find a little girl of about three, “hanging over the edge of the prau with her body in the water, and screaming.” She slips into the sea and nearly drowns, until one of the men leaps in after her.
Everywhere the people are ready to fight. The Bornean pilot goes ashore at a town where he says he has friends, and while he is bathing in the river he is killed with a lance. The frigate creeps along the coast of Cebu, which is “thickly populated,” with fourteen or fifteen villages on the shore. They are too afraid to land, even for food.
Holy Saturday, 21 April 1565
At Bohol, Legazpi has nearly given them up. They were to be gone a week, and three weeks have passed. He sends a prau to Cebu with two soldiers and with Sikatuna and Sigala themselves to look for them, and it comes back with no news. Then, on Holy Saturday, three hours before dawn, a shout goes up through the fleet: “the frigate! the frigate!”
They are thin, but alive, all but the Bornean pilot. Cebu, they report, is a large island, crowded with people, with many villages on the coast and farmland inland. The soldiers who went in the prau with Sikatuna say that its harbour is excellent.
Legazpi holds a council. The officers agree: they will settle in the islands, and the *San Pedro*, the lighter and better ship, will carry the news to Mexico and try the way back. They will go to Cebu, and they will go now, before the rains.
On Easter Sunday, 22 April 1565, the fleet sails for Cebu.