 Aside from a description of, and historical allusions to what is now the Philippines and various other Far Eastern countries, the codex also contains 97 hand-drawn color paintings and illustrations depicting peoples, birds and animals (both real and mythological) of the Philippines, the Indonesian Archipelago, China and mainland Southeast Asia.It has been pointed out more than once that the depictions of peoples from the Far East are the first ever created for European eyes.The first illustration is an oblong fold-out, 74 are full-page colored illustrations and the remaining are arranged four to a page on 22 pages (with some of the quarters remaining blank).