that of
Luzon, which gave name to the island of Manila--through the error
or misunderstanding of the first Spaniards, who discovered it, when
examining and questioning the Indians whom they met in a boat. They
removed afterward to a better site, in the said Marivelez, and that
place has seven other villages, in a distance of twelve leguas, which
it administers as annexes. The persons who were converted to the faith
by the energy and labor of Ours reached one thousand five hundred.

That fort having been assured against the power and empire of
the devil, the door was opened wider for passage inside, and the
tyrannized souls of the Indians of Zambales were gained. The latter,
confident in their fierceness, were divided along the sea-coast,
and exercised themselves in the chase, by which they sustained
themselves--together with some fish--only zealous in killing men,
which was the greatest glory among them. Consequently, no boats dared
to go to their lands, unless with great risk of the occupants losing
their lives. With such brutality, the mountains of difficulties which
father Fray Rodrigo had to conquer in softening the harshness of those
beasts; and the sweat and labor that it would cost him to make them
comprehend the dictates of reason (from which they were very far),
while he was suffering extreme penury in all things necessary to life,
can be imagined. His food was only wild herbs and some fruit, which
was not on all occasions accompanied by a mouthful of biscuit, sent
as a great treat, if possible, from Manila. His rest, day and night,
was so little, and was so liable to surprises that scarcely could he
rest a moment without the expectation of death before him all the time,
which the heathen, instigated by the devil, promised to give him. He
went through their thickets and along their shores, crying out and
endeavoring to conquer the coldness of those men. By virtue of the
cross, he was finally able, little by little, to soften the insolence
of their fierce breasts, and to render them more tractable, although
they seemed like rocks in the hardness of their obstinate hearts.

God our Lord decreed that, in order to conquer their obstinate
resistance, it should happen one day that this same father, Fray
Rodrigo, on passing through a thicket consecrated to their devils
(where, as their rites said, it was sacrilege to cut or touch any
branch--besides the great fear that they had conceived that if anyone
should have