should fortify themselves where they were working.  It would cost me a great deal to dislodge them, and besides there was the risk which was run of losing the communication with your city; for we had to enter boldly into the enemy’s country, as one of the boats of the friendly Indians from Zanboanga had done.  Finally, as the evil of the want of food was most pressing, and as without food we could neither go back nor forward, I resolved to reenforce the pass of Vutil, so that the enemy could not pass that way and join with the people of Buyahen.  The troops who were acting as porters kept the pass, and immediately, at the same time, I sent the people who were above down to the sea, ordering Captain Juan Pacho, who was at their head, not to come back without bringing in first all the rice which he had harvested and cut, as aforesaid.  I got a galley ready with a good deal of trouble, for there was not even bonote [5] to calk it, and I had to go in person among the houses of the Indians to find some.  I launched it, and fitted it with guns and new rigging to make it ready; for I was resolved that if the enemy fled I should follow them even as far as their own country.  When the men got back I embarked, on Thursday morning, which I reckon to be the third of November.  By noon I had come in sight of the enemy, where I anchored, and we exchanged cannon-shots.  Seeing that he had a larger force than I had understood, I immediately sent an order to Captain Guerrero who was in Butil, that he should come down to the river of Vitara to the sea, with a galliot, and enter the mouth of this river of Mindanao and come within sight of the enemy, and exchange cannon-shots on his arrival.  He did so, arriving at noon on Friday.  On the way he met an outpost of the enemy, and killed a few Indians who were with them, with a cannon-shot.  When he arrived at cannon-shot distance from the fort he anchored, and commenced to fire.  The enemy replied so well that at the first shot they hit the galliot, and it was only by good fortune that it did not go to the bottom.  With the second they killed a soldier.  With such exercise the day was passed.  Saturday morning, Lumaguan having arrived with some troops that were expected, I ordered Captain Guerrero to land immediately with twenty-five soldiers and join me, leaving the rest and the captain of the galliot in it, with orders that, when the troops began the investment, the galliot should come up close to the mouth of a lake which was close to the fort.  Accordingly, when these troops came I landed ninety men with Captains Juan Pacho, Guerrero, Ruy Gomes, Grabiel Gonzalez, and Altra.  I circled about the fort with the galley, fighting with a good deal of skirmishing, and the galliot doing the same on the other side, so that we had the fort between us.  On my side the troops landed not a hundred paces from the fort, on which, on the side toward the aforesaid lake, they had already closed in, and which they had reached as well as on our side, where a very large cavalier was under construction, although they had not yet finished the enclosure.  The enemy were so brave that although, by keeping their fleet within the lake, they might have gone away two nights before without losing anything, not only would they not do so, but they even ran the whole fleet on land, excepting one ship, using that as a bridge to pass from the cavalier to the fort.