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. 24]

I630-I634]

MEDINA'S HISTORIA

I 4

a storm struck them, that they gave themselves up as
lost. Accordingly, as servants of God, they had
recourse to Him, sincerely confessing themselves and
praying earnestly- as well as their terror allowed -
to God to beg pardon for their sins. The Sangleys
already, with loosened hair (which means their last
hope gone), did not attempt to do a thing in the
champan, for they thought that they could not escape
from it. At last, encouraged by the fathers, after
setting a scrap of sail, they yielded to the force of
the stern-wind, and in less than thirty hours reached
the Chinese coasts. They made more than three
hundred leguas in that short time and route, which,
even in fine weather, would take fifteen or twenty
days, or one or two months. They landed, where no
little danger awaited them, as the people tried to
kill them. But at last the Lord's mercy was not
found wanting in that country, for through it they
went from land to land, until they reached Macan,
a city held by the Portuguese in the country of
China. They were succored there with great generosity, for in works of charity the Portuguese are
most generous. In Manila, they were thought to
have been drowned. As such, the masses and suffrages that are wont to be said in this province of the
order, for the religious who die in it, were said for
them in all the convents. Afterward, the Portuguese
who came to Manila informed Ours of the [above]
event, whereat all rejoiced greatly; for those regarded as lost were religious who were held in much
esteem. Two of them soon came, namely, father
Fray Diego de Abalos and father Fray Juan Gallegos. The third, father Fray Francisco del Portillo,
went to the island of Hermosa, which belonged then