Indians were frightened,
and were about to flee from the terror caused them by so unexpected
a petition. But proceeding, after the encouragement given them by one
of their number who was bolder, they discovered the said father, who
was already half dead. Getting him out as quickly as possible, they
took care of him and gave him some food, whereupon he recovered, and
told them of his accident. It was told and wondered at, with reason,
in Manila and in other places; and all who heard of it attributed it
to nothing less than a prodigy never seen.

[Lives of Fathers Alonso de la Anunciacion and Francisco de los Santos,
and Brother Bernardo de San Augustin, follow in the succeeding three
sections of this chapter, which concludes with a section on the]

_Foundation of the convent of Masinglo_

With just reason can this house be [regarded as] the most precious and
esteemed jewel that the Augustinian Reform venerates, as it was the
fort that was raised against the devil in the lands of the infidels,
which the devil had usurped from the cross and the gospel, when our
religious, after so many labors and sufferings, tamed the untamable
Zambales. That village, before called Masinloc, was suitable for
the foundation, as it was in a location from which they could attend
quickly to the service of God our Lord and of souls. Accordingly, they
chose it, although its inhabitants were more ferocious than the rest
of their neighbors because they had no one to drive away their errors
and illumine their darkness. Father Fray Andres del Espiritu Santo,
then, accompanied by two other religious, planted that holy bulwark
to oppose all hell. With great care and helpfulness they tried first
to adorn it with the example of their virtues, so that the neophytes
should become fonder of the law which we profess. At that time the
recently baptized amounted to eight hundred, with whom great efforts
were exerted in separating them from their former evil habits, more
especially that of idolatry, to which was joined that of intoxication;
they were given to these in excess, by the habit that they had acquired
in both things from childhood. With the lapse of time the converted
have surpassed two thousand, because of the reduction of certain more
terrible Indians who lived in the mountains, without houses and away
from the coast. The latter were continually at war with others who
are called Negrillos [_i.e._, "little blacks"], for they seem to be
such, a