l three possess excellent timber, from
which pitch is distilled in plenty, and makes excellent pitch for
vessels. One of those trees produces the fragrant camanguian; [72]
another very abundantly a kind of almond, larger than that of Europa,
for which it is mistaken in taste. They have many civet-cats; civet is
a drug which was obtained there long before this time, and had a good
sale in Acapulco, although that product is not in so great demand now.

2. Don Luis Henrriquez de Guzman, a knight of Sevilla, reduced those
islands to the crown of Espana in the year one thousand five hundred
and sixty-nine. Their conquest was finished and they were left
thoroughly subdued by Captain Andres de Ybarra. Protected by arms,
father Fray Alonso Ximenez, an Observant Augustinian, introduced
the evangelical law. In that he did excellent work and obtained
much fruit in Masbate. Other religious, imbued with the same spirit
and of the same institute, followed, and spread the work into Ticao
and Burias. By that means a suitable mission field was established,
and the Augustinians conserved the administration thereof until the
year six hundred and nine. At that time they resigned that district
into the hands of the bishop of Camarines, who employed seculars
instead of those regulars. There were various seculars in charge of
the administration there, until the year one thousand six hundred and
eighty-eight. The district handed over by the Augustinian fathers had
two hundred and fifty regular families; but that number was diminished
by the terrible invasions of the Moros, so that the corresponding
stipend was not sufficient for the maintenance of one cura, and no one
could be found who was willing to take care of that district. On that
account his Excellency, Master Don Fray Andres Gonzalez of the Order
of Preachers, their bishop, represented to his Majesty that it was
absolutely necessary to apportion the curacies in another manner for
the just spiritual administration of his bishopric, by placing some
of them in the charge of regulars; and he petitioned that his Majesty
approve his new plan, by ordering his governor of those islands to
proceed in it as vice-patron. The king consented to what the prelate
asked, and despatched his royal decree, under date of Madrid, August
thirteen, eighty-five. With that order his Excellency presented to the
governor the new distribution of districts, with the changes necessary
and fitting. In that distribut