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. 40]

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THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

[Vol. 40

dians who go about in Manila and its environs, who
are interpreters, servants in accounting-rooms and
secretarial offices, who are accustomed to deal with
Spaniards of all kinds, with creoles, mestizos, Sangleys, and other kinds of people who assemble there
for trade. They have learned fraud and deceit, as
well as the bad morals and propensities of all and
every one of them. As is seen, one cannot judge of a
whole nation - and much less of all the nations of the
islands, who are diverse and distinct in genius and
customs by the cases of these Indians who speak Spanish. And taking into account so great diversity, I affirm that it is impossible to find a definition that admits and includes all of them. For these persons
whom I have mentioned, reared among so many
classes, and among people so heterogeneous, and who
are imbued with customs so diverse, cannot form
rules by which to explain their own nation, much less
by which to define the other nations.
Now if the statements of authors in regard to physical or moral matters are so at variance that we can
say that each author has a different opinion - as says
the proverb, Quot capita, tot sententiae - and if thus
far no ground and certain point has been found at
which the understanding may stop, how is it strange
that they do not find, in order to describe Indians
with customs so unusual and artificial as have those
of Manila, a compound idea made up of all that they
have learned from the Spaniard, both good and evil;
all that they have learned from the Guachinango; 33 and what they have learned from the mestizo,
333 A name given by the inhabitants of Cuba to the natives of
Mexico, and in Vera Cruz to those of the interior. The name is
also applied to shrewd and brusque persons. (New Veldzquez
Dictionary.)