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. 44]

80

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

[Vol. 44

these missions with the greatest eagerness, are sufficient recommendation for them. With just reason
they can be esteemed, as being among the most
laborious and difficult which the Society maintains
anywhere in the world. This title is deserved by the
missions of Philipinas, and among them those to
Mindanao and the Subanos are some of the most
difficult. No one accuses this statement of being
exaggerated, and still less of being arrogant, before
he has examined it minutely; and then he cannot find
more moderate terms [than the above] in order not
to fall short of the truth. Whatever dangers, inconveniences, and privations are experienced on land
are also experienced on the sea, with an [additional]
sort of circumstances which renders them more
grievous, and besides this there are the hardships
natural and peculiar to that element; and even that
which on land is chosen for convenience and relief
costs on the sea inconvenience and trouble - as, for
instance, sleeping, eating, and taking exercise. Every
boat is a prison without chains, but more closely shut
than the narrowest jail; it is a broad coffin, in which
the living suffer the discomforts of death. Whoever
sets foot in a boat resolutely confronts all the elements, which conspire in arms to terrify and destroy
him. The water upon which he journeys, the air by
which he sails, the fire by which he lives, the land
which he so anxiously seeks- all are declared enemies of the traveler. The sea is, by antonomasia, the
theater for [all] perils; and no one who has not been
tossed upon its foaming waves can speak with justice
of its dangers, just as the blind man cannot dispute
about colors. A heart of steel or of diamond, say the
ancients, he must have had who first boldly launched