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. 48]

I 8

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

[Vol. 48

had "baptized all the infidels there, and induced all
the criminals who had resorted thither to repent of
their deeds and reform their lives." He continued
these labors and these triumphs until his death, in
1726.]
The third mission of the Visayas Islands is that of
which the reverend father provincial Fray Vicente
Ibarra gave a particular and exact account to the
governor of the islands in the year 1738, when he had
finished his visitation of the missions, having received an urgent request that he should make report
of their condition and progress (for with all this
strictness are affairs examined in Philipinas, since
such is the command of his Majesty, whom may God
preserve); and because the said father provincial,
as being an eyewitness and well acquainted with the
religious who began that mission, can speak with
more accuracy, I will set down his very words, as
follows: "The third mission which my province
maintains is in the mountains of Bosoc in the province of Ogtong, on the further coast of the province
of Panay. This mission was established in the year
1728, an entrance being made in the rugged region
of those mountains by father Fray Felix de Zufiiga`~
- a religious of the most religious habits and the
gentlest demeanor; and so zealous for souls that,
without heeding the inclemencies of those wild
mountains, he went about on foot, unshod, in sun and
in rain, crossing almost by a miracle swollen and
50 Felix de Rioja y Zuiiiga was born at Cadiz in I69I, of
a noble family, and made his profession there at the age of seventeen, renouncing an inherited title. He came to the islands in
1712, and seven years later was sent to the Bataan mission. He
was sent to Guimbal (1722) and Bugason in 1728; in the
latter place he was murdered in June, 1734.