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]

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THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

[Vol. 13

our course by land. This change, however, was not
without the special providence of God; for, as we
were passing by some grain-fields, an old woman lay
very sick in her wretched hut. Learning that I was
going by, she had me summoned; and after I had
given her instruction, I baptized her, with great consolation to both, and on the following day she died."
The remarkable case of three old men,'of whom two
were converted, and the third, who was blind, refused. - Chapter LIX.
The village of Leite, which the father here mentions, lies on the banks of a very beautiful stream of
the same name; which gives its name to the whole
island. The village lies at the very entrance of the
island, as one goes eastward from Manila, from
which it is distant about one hundred and thirty
leguas. The distance between Carigara and Leite is
five leguas by land and ten by sea. The fathers usually make the journey by sea, to avoid the fatigue of
crossing on foot the great mountain-ranges in that
route. On the other side of Carigara, proceeding
along the coast of this island-which, as we have
said, runs east and west - there is another river, called
Barugo, two leguas distant; on its shore are many
dwellings, which, being united in a village, numbered three hundred houses (besides which there
were many others). Father Mattheo Sanchez repaired to the village of Barugo, where at one haul
he caught two of three fishes; the third remained in
spiritual and bodily darkness. As the incident is a
notable one, I shall relate it in the words of a letter
from the same father, who writes thus: " In the
village of Barugo an event occurred by which our