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. 36]

214

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

[Vol. 36

uates; and it is the head of a very religious province
of Discalced, who have more than fifty convents
(which will soon be enumerated), in which they
religiously administer the sacraments to one hundred
and thirty thousand Christians.
90. This province during the first fourteen years
was a custodia, subject to the province of San
Joseph; and it was governed by four custodians, up
to the year I591. It was then erected into a province,
and its first provincial elected; this was father Fray
de Jesus, a Catalan from the province of San Joseph,
a most accomplished religious. From then until this
year of 662 there have been twenty-three provincials.
This province has the following convents, most of
which have very substantial buildings of hewn stone,
and handsome churches well adorned with altars,,
reredoses, and ornaments, with much silver- and
with singers, organs, and other musical instruments,
and ecclesiastical jewels.
9I. Cabite, two leguas from Manila, is the chief
port of Filipinas; it is safe, and very convenient for
all the ships of that region. With soldiers, pilots,
and mariners, it numbers one hundred and fifty
Spanish citizens; there are also many Indians, and it
has a ward of Mahometan Lascars, and another of
Chinese. It has a parochial church, with secular
priests, a hospital, and convents; that of San Francisco is the second of this [Franciscan] province, the
third being that of Ternate. The rest of the convents
are in mission parishes, each one with a religious or
two teachers. There are six in the environs of Manila- Dilao, Santa Ana, Sampaloc, Polo, Bocaui,
and Meycahuayan. There are ten [sic] along the
lake of Bay- Moron, Tanay, Pililla, Mabitac, Sini