its
district. Chapter LXXIV.

We deem it a special providence of our Lord that while the native
language of the Indians of our various residences is the same, and it
is easy for our workers to remove from one place to another, since
they are not, in doing so, obliged to learn several tongues--there
is, at the same time, such variety in the stations and missions. Some
of them may be visited entirely by sea, such as those of Tinagon or
Samar; others wholly by land, as the mission of Alangalang. Again,
others may be reached partly by sea, partly by land, such as Dulac,
Carigara, and Bohol. This is a great convenience, in assigning the
missionaries according to the abilities and temperament of each,
allotting to those who cannot journey by land, stations on the coast,
and inland posts to those who can endure the hardships of the roads.

There is enough of such hardship in the residence of Alangalang,
where four fathers and three brethren are employed, toiling in the
vineyard of the Lord--journeying on foot (as is our custom there)
under sun and shower, through swamps and rivers, with the water often
waist-deep; yet with much consolation and joy in the Lord, for whose
love are undertaken these and like hardships.

Our brethren live in those villages well content at seeing that our
Lord is continually gaining souls to Himself, and inclining to His holy
law the hearts of those who but a few years ago were living without God
and without law. From the year 1600 to the year 1602, when I departed
from those regions, two thousand six hundred and ninety-four persons
had been baptized in that mission. They attend with great punctuality
the sermons, masses, and other divine services, which in that mission
are celebrated with greater splendor and more punctiliousness than in
others, through the advantage which it has in three choirs of Indians,
who [in this service] surpass many Spaniards. They are wont to sing
the _Salve_ to our Lady; on some days, the litany; and on the Fridays
of Lent the _Miserere_ to accompany the discipline--all of which
indicates the faith which burns and glows in their souls.

To that residence of Alangalang are annexed those of Ogmuc and
Carigara, with seven or eight other villages; through these our fathers
have dispersed (having made their retreat, in the course of the year
for the [spiritual] exercises), being assigned [to certain villages] to
instruct their people. The superior, Father Mateo Sanchez,