The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commericial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century; [Vol. 1, no. 13]

I604-1605]

CHIRINO'S RELATION

emerged victorious from the struggle, leaving the
wretch in confusion and shame. Another woman
was no less persecuted, a man offering her, among
other gifts, a gold chain that was worth more than
thirty escudos; but she rejected all his gifts with
Christian courage. Then, fearing the fury of her
persecutor and her own great danger, she persuaded
her mother to accompany her, and they fled to some
grain-fields, where she remained in hiding until he
who was molesting her had left the village. Another,
a young girl hardly eighteen years of age, and so poor
that she could procure only a little rice for her support, was persecuted by many men, who offered her
large sums of money to relieve her poverty; one of
them offered her more than forty eight-real pieces.
But she made answer that our Lord, in whom she
trusted, would relieve her need; that she did not care
to live by any means that would offend Him, but in
serving Him was well content in her poverty; and
that she was confident that our Lord would not abandon her. Another poor woman resisted with equal
courage no less vexatious importunities, refusing a
quantity of gold worth more than eighty escudos, thus
leaving her persecutor in amazement. Another
woman, fearing that she would have to defend her
body by force from so many and violent importunities, removed it from danger, and herself from any
occasion of offending God, by fleeing to the mountains, where she wandered about for almost four
months, suffering, although with much satisfaction,
many hardships and privations; nor did she return
to the village until she learned that he who
had brought her to such a plight had departed
thence."