From Japon are imported much wheat, and flour, also
silver, metals, saltpeter, weapons, and many curiosities. All of these
things make life in that region pleasant and an object of desire to
men; and indeed it seems a copy of that Tyre so extolled by Ezekiel.

In the second place, as concerns the religious, there was from the
very beginning the very tractable disposition displayed by so many
natives of the islands in embracing the faith. But as the many and
excellent ministers whom the holy Order of St. Augustin promptly sent
thither were not sufficient for the task of converting the natives,
nor were those who were sent by the Order of the seraphic father
St. Francis, [48] which in the year 1580 already had in the islands
some establishments, and had made many conversions--the fathers of the
Society of Jesus were also needed. They were introduced, in that year,
by the first bishop of these islands, Don Fray Domingo de Salazar,
[49] a priest of the Order of St. Dominic--who afterward died in
the city of Toledo, as archbishop of Manila. This great prelate had
left his province of Mexico to consult with the Catholic king, Don
Felipe Second, concerning matters of grave importance; and, being by
his Majesty appointed bishop of the Filipinas, he soon sought from
the king permission to take with him to the islands members of the
Society--as appears from the same royal provision made for them
in Nueva Espana. Accordingly he took with him from that country
the first members of the Society to enter those islands--namely,
Father Antonio Sedeno and Father Alonso Sanchez. These, our fathers,
entered the city of Manila without cloaks, as I have heard Father
Antonio Sedeno himself relate, in commending their poverty; for those
which they brought with them from Mexico had worn out and rotted
in the voyage. They went to rest at [the convent of] San Francisco,
where those blessed fathers received them with much charity until they
found an abode--which they chose in a suburb of Manila, called Laguio,
very wretched and closely packed, and so poorly furnished that the
very chest in which they kept their books was the table upon which
they ate. Their only food for many days was rice boiled in water
without salt, oil, meat, fish, or even an egg, or any other thing;
sometimes as a dainty, they secured some salted sardines.

But the good bishop who had brought them did not leave them long in
such straits; for not only did he offer us his libr