e author confesses that it is as
difficult to define their nature as are the eight impossible things
which are recounted there. That seems to me a fine hyperbole.

From the above one can see that, as he commenced this letter by
affirming a hyperbole with eight hyperboles, it is not surprising that
I called it hyperbolical; and especially if all the hyperboles that it
contains from its beginning to its end be enumerated. But ere I begin
to express my opinion I would like to sum up two contradictory and
opposite expressions that I find in these authors. The reverend father
Fray Gaspar says of the Indians, in his letter, that the difficulty
of knowing the Indians lies not in the individual but in the race,
for, if one be known, all are known.

Father Pedro Murillo says, in his approbation of the Cronicas, [331]
that "there is no fixed rule by which to construe the Indians; for
each one needs a new syntax, all being anomalous. With the Indians
the argument does not conclude by induction, since no one is like to
himself; for, in the short circuit of a day, he changes into more
colors than a chameleon, takes more shapes than a Proteus, and has
more movements than a Euripus. [332] He who has most to do with them,
knows them least. In short, they are an aggregate of contrarieties,
and the best logician cannot reconcile them. They are an obscure and
confused chaos, in which no species can be perceived and no points
of exactness distinguished." All these terms considered one by one,
compose a very exaggerated hyperbole, in which this author showed his
great erudition and little experience, for he only ministered in a few
missions, and for a short time. For during most of the time while he
lived in these islands he did not leave the professor's chair, except
for a short time; and all that he tells of his journey to and travels
among the Visayas was learned in passing and hastily, in company
with the provincial who visited those missions. There he obtained
very little light on the character and temperament of the Indians,
as he had no dealings with them as one settled among them. And, just
as in this expression he opposes himself without much reason to the
reverend father Fray Gaspar, who after forty years of ministry, affirms
that the Indians are well designated by the Greek word monopantas--a
term which was given to a certain people by a critic, as they were all
similar and homogeneous--so also when he affirms that all are anoma