, where they defended their barbarous mode
of life at all hazards, by resisting with arms those who tried
to reduce them. Various people had also gathered there from other
islands, fleeing from the settled villages and from the punishment
due their atrocities. Consequently, the latter were extraordinarily
fierce. Many heathen were numbered among them, accustomed long since
to that rudeness of life and savagery, and they were all the worst
kind of people. They committed notable depredations on the civilized
villages, robbed the boats that anchored in the ports and bays, and
treacherously committed many murders. Their boldness rose to such a
pitch that one could not cross through the interior of those islands,
and to arrive at their shores was the same as to make port in a land
of enemies. It was also a laborious and dangerous task to navigate
along the coasts, trying to find those rancherias. Consequently,
Father Fray Ildefonso de la Concepcion was twice overturned in the
sea, and another time had his boat dashed to pieces on some reefs. In
that shipwreck he miraculously escaped with his life, although some
of his companions perished in the water. Those dangers came to him
in his visits to a new village established on the opposite coast. In
order to avoid such dangers and visit that village more frequently,
the father opened a road through the interior from Mobo over rough
mountains, where many other risks were run because of the heathens. In
that continual crossing the father fell grievously sick, his pains
having originated from the hardships of such a road, with the showers
and heat. He died at last, succumbing to such fatigues. But those
sufferings were continued by others, who conquered that stubbornness by
their constancy and fervent application, although with the well-known
risk of losing their lives. Consequently, those ministers who were
there in the beginning say that, although they have been many years
in other doctrinas and missions, they had not so much to suffer and
endure in any of them as in that of Masbate.

[The third extract from Concepcion's Historia is from vol. ix,
pp. 123-150, and comprises all of the fourth chapter except the
last paragraph.]

CHAPTER IV

By sentence of the royal Audiencia, the province of Zambales is
restored to its first conquistadors, the discalced Augustinian
Recollect fathers.

1. The Zambal Indians, of an intractable disposition, people of
wild customs, and lit