Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 01).djvu/214

 in appearance, but in name. That region is now called China; Ptolemæus styled it regio Sinarum; the barbarians also compressing the s say Sina instead of China; and the Portuguese themselves place China in this region. Therefore it being asserted that the island of Gilolo and the Maluco islands are Cape Catigara, as is a fact, the line of demarcation falls thirty-two degrees more to the westward and passes through the mouth of the Ganges. Therefore Zamatra, Malaca, and the Malucos fall within our demarcation.

Item: in everything discovered by the Portuguese of which Ptolemæus has any notice, the former conform in their navigation to the latter. They locate China north of the Malucos in the gulf Magnus, just as Ptolemæus locates it. For these and other reasons, which will be adduced by wiser than we, it seems to us that the Malucos, Malaca, and Zamatra fall thirty-two degrees within his Majesty's demarcation, as we stated above. This is the opinion of all three of us, and as such we give it, signed with our names this fifteenth of April, one thousand five hundred and twenty-four, in the city of Badajoz. Fray Tomás Duran, Magister. Sebastian Caboto. Juan Vespucci. [The notarial countersignature follows.]

Don Hernando Colon asserts that the first section of the treaty ratified between the Catholic sovereigns (may they rest in peace) and King Don Juan