religious as associates and coadjutors,
and those six ministers began to scatter throughout the island. That
island is in the center of this vast archipelago, and was formerly
called Mainit; but the Spaniards gave it the name of Mindoro from
a village called Minolo, located between Puerto de Galeras and
the bay of Ylog. It is triangular in shape, its angles being three
promontories: that of Calavite, facing west; that of Dumah or Pola,
facing north; and that of Burruncan, facing south. In size it is the
seventh of the more important islands, and is about one hundred leguas
in circumference. Its temperature is naturally hot, but is tempered
by the great dampness arising from frequent rains. The height of its
mountains aids also in that. On account of such circumstances it is
a very fertile land, and, although not very healthful for strangers,
good and favorable to its inhabitants. The latter made themselves
feared by their neighbors, especially on the sea, where they attacked
the most powerful, carrying blood and fire everywhere. Notwithstanding,
they were of great simplicity, for when they saw the Europeans wearing
clothes and shoes--which they did not use--they imagined that that
adornment was natural to them. They are but little given to the
cultivation of the soil, and are content with wild fruits; sago,
which they get from the palm and which is a good food for them; the
flesh of wild animals; and fish, which the rivers and seacoast offer
them in great plenty. They have little rice, on account of their sloth
in sowing and tending it, for they make up that lack sufficiently in
roots and fruits. If they are weak, although corpulent, it is because
of their transcendent vice in being hostile to work.

5. Captain Juan de Salcedo made a beginning in the conquest of the
district of Mamburao, in the year one thousand five hundred and
seventy. That conquest was completed from the point of Burruncan
to that of Calavite by the adelantado Miguel de Legaspi, in the
beginning of the following year. Gradually the remainder was subdued
by the missionaries, by whose treatment the rudeness of the manners
of those people was softened. Consequently, the encomienda of that
large island was very desirable. The Observant Augustinian fathers
were employed in its spiritual cultivation and founded the village
of Baco. The discalced fathers of St. Francis also labored there for
some time, it being ceded to them by the Observant Augustinians. T