[66] Compare the custom among the Norse vikings--a warrior, at the approach of death from natural causes, embarking alone in his vessel, floating out to sea, and setting it afire, that he might perish with it.
[67] The table for Spanish measures of length: 12 puntos = 1 linea; 12 lineas = 1 pulgada; 6 pulgadas = 1 sesma; 2 sesmas = 1 piè (the foot, = 11.128 U. S. inches); 3 piès = 1 vara; 4 varas = 1 estadal. Also, 9 lineas = 1 dedo; 12 dedos = 1 palma. The _legua_ of 8,000 _varas_ equals 4.2151 United States miles.
[68] _Camote:_ the sweet potato (_Ipomoea batatas_.)
[69] An interesting reference to one of the earliest and most characteristic industries among the natives of the Philippines. The "wild banana" is the _abacá_ (_Musa textilis_); its product (made from the fibers of the leaves) is commonly known as "Manila hemp," and is one of the chief exports from the islands. Two kinds of cloth are now made by the natives from the _abacá_, called _sinamay_ and _tinampipi_; in making them, they use only primitive handlooms. See Zúñiga's description of this manufacture, in _Estadismo_ (Retana's edition), vol. ii, pp. 41, 42: cf. pp. 94, 95, where he praises the cotton cloths made in the Philippines.
[70] The Spanish word is _moldes_; this sentence regarding the art of printing in China is not in the Sevilla MS. Gonzalez de Mendoza gives an interesting account in his _Hist. gran China_ (Madrigal edition, Madrid, 1586), part i, book iii, ch. xvi, fol. 87-87b; he says that the Chinese understood and used the art of printing more than five hundred years before Gutenberg. He supposes that this invention was carried to Germany via Russia and Muscovy, or by way of the Red Sea and Arabia. The Augustinian Herrada and his associates took to the Philippines a great many books, "printed in various parts of that kingdom [China], but mostly in the province of Ochian [the former province of Hu-Kwang, now forming the two provinces of Hou-Nan and Hou-Pe] ... for therein were bookshops of the largest size," where books were sold at low prices. In ch. xvii (fol. 89-91), Mendoza enumerates the subjects treated in the books procured by Herrada; they included history, statistics, geography, law, medicine, religion, etc. See also Park's translation of Mendoza (Hakluyt Society, London, 1853), vol. i, pp. 131-137, and editorial note thereon regarding antiquity of printing in China.
