a there is no police office, and a passport is easily given
to whomever asks for it. In spite of all this, some curas--as for
instance, Father Lorieri of Paniqui--without having any notice of
me, received me with gratifying and ready hospitality. For the rest,
the convents are usually the lodging-houses and inns of the village.

The friars in Filipinas are quite different from those in Espana. They
are very glad to see a Spaniard arrive, when they know that he is not
a malicious person. They have traveled, and they have escaped from the
conversations and meetings of the convent; they are more tolerant,
because they have rubbed against many Spaniards of liberal ideas;
they have found that the lion is not so fierce as it is painted, and
that there are respectable people in all parties, and men with good
hearts--especially in that which takes for its goal the good of the
country. How often would we abhor people less if we approached them
and became acquainted with them! We must confess also that the hate
cherished by the religious in Espana toward the liberals proceeds
in great measure from the personal insults which they have endured;
while in Filipinas these are very few and are neutralized by the
tokens of veneration and respect which others pay them, because of
circumstances which are entirely distinct from those of Espana. A
man without prejudice and with a suitable standard of judgment, who
lives in the metropolis [_i.e._, Madrid], sees in a friar the enemy
of reforms, of progress, and of public prosperity; but, when he is in
Filipinas, he sees in this same friar the benefactor of the public,
and the preserver of tranquillity and of the colony. Consequently
he considers and treats the friar differently than in Espana, and
is repaid in the like coin. From this it happens that many who come
from Espana with very exaggerated and preconceived ideas against
the religious--even to the point of never having had relations or
speech with a friar--and here have to come in contact with them, are
surprised to find some (and even very many) of them very sociable,
serviceable, tolerant, and worthy of all appreciation; and this has
happened to me myself, both in Filipinas and in Palestina.

In regard to their being gamblers, I can say that when several curas
of the neighboring villages assemble on the feast-day of a village,
they sometimes play to pass the hot hours of the day; but I have
never seen in the houses of Spanish religi