h all earnestness to recover
their lost quiet. A great field was offered to them, in which to give
vent to the ardor of their desires; but being few in number, they could
not accept as much as was given them. They determined finally to take
the island of Bolinao, near the province of Zambales and of Tugui,
whose warlike and fierce inhabitants, although less so than the others,
gave father Fray Geronimo de Christo, vicar-provincial at that time,
and his associate, father Fray Andres del Santo Espiritu, sufficient
occasion to exercise their patience; for, not wishing to hear them,
they tried daily to kill them. The two fathers persisted in softening
those diamond hearts with their perseverance, after having lived for
some months on only herbs of the field, when the natives deprived
them of food so that, thus needy, the fathers should be compelled
to leave them and go away, or so that they might die of hunger. That
might have happened if God our Lord had not aided them with His grace,
as is His wont in times of greatest stress. The patient endurance of
Ours conquered the barbarians; and, recognizing that those who were
so long-suffering and so kind could not fail to be right in what
they said, they submitted to the yoke of the gospel, very gladly
and joyfully receiving the Christian instruction and baptism. For
that reason it became necessary to found a convent there, and that
was accomplished through the conversion of one thousand six hundred
souls, who are directed, together with those of other villages near
by. In that place occurred a circumstance resembling that of father
Fray Rodrigo de San Miguel, which we have recounted above; for while
all the Indians of the village were not yet converted, our religious
learned that those of the village had gone to a bamboo plantation not
very distant, in order to worship it and to venerate their bamboos, as
if they were gods. They followed the Indians, and found them occupied
with their blind observances. The more the religious persuaded them,
they could not induce them to cut a single bamboo, because of the error
which they had accepted from the mouth of the devil, namely, that they
would surely die if they touched the canes. Thereupon the fathers,
although at the evident risk of their lives, amid the great shouting
and lamentations of the Indians, ordered a good Christian servant, who
acted as their guide, to begin to fell the thicket. Proceeding at first
with the fear of those