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]

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THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

[Vol. 48

this conflagration were destroyed all the furniture of
the church and the house there, as also the goods of
the people who had gone into the church; and the
fire was so fierce that it gave no opportunity to save
two lantacas, two versos, and the supplies that were
stored there - gunpowder and balls, and rice for the
food of the people. These took refuge in the church
in great confusion and fear, at seeing themselves surrounded by so many enemies, and trying to prevent
the fire - which, notwithstanding that the church was
unroofed, had already caught on the ridgepole and
other timbers - from going further.
At the time when they burned the sacristy, the
Moros made five trenches very near the church, and
immediately began to fire their artillery; this consisted in lantacas of various sizes, and other pieces up
to the caliber of three-libra balls, as far as we could
judge by the balls which were picked up. Besides
this, there were among them many musketeers that
were very skilful, and the rest occupied themselves
in hurling sumbilins and stones; and others threw a
sort of wooden bar, sharp at one end, and with fire on
the other; this caused much annoyance to the people,
who, on account of the danger of fire, were manifestly without any protection by day or by night.
On this first day there were three killed and five
wounded on our side, and all by balls, for there was
no special harm done by the rest of their missiles.
Since the Moros were so numerous that they could
renew their forces, they fought so continuously that
they gave us no opportunity to rest night or day, so
that some of our dead could not be buried until after
several days. At last the women, besides providing
some little food for the men, were continually occu