which is a province, has a population of two hundred and
sixty thousand souls. [149]

This prodigious increase of inhabitants in an area so small, and
amid conditions so little advantageous for agriculture, has no other
explanation than the conscientious and constant labor of the regular
parish priests, each of whom notes in his respective parish register
with scrupulous niceness the heights and depths of his district,
without any of the alterations that can modify the statistics of
his village escaping his eye; and who assigns to their respective
dwellings men and women, and youths and old people, with the correct
date of their birth. From this patriotic labor it results that the
obligations of the royal treasury are satisfied by all the people of
Bohol at the moment when they become of proper age.

Reflecting upon the advantageous conditions by which the character
of those peoples has been modified, and how they have been completely
withdrawn from those untamable and savage forms of life which lasted
until the last century, and that they have at present become fond
of work, respectful to authority, and grateful in their social
intercourse, we can infer that the ministers of the order who
are at present watching over the necessities of their souls are
laboring tirelessly in the confessional, are preaching the word
of God without cessation, and are consoling the sick in their most
remote dwellings. In the midst of so many lofty occupations of the
religious ministry, the Recollects have been able to study even the
physical necessities of their proteges, and the ingenious manner
of making these lighter. To their direction is owing the different
industries proceeding from the products of the earth, which, prepared
and elaborated with due intelligence, furnish other kinds of business,
permitted and honorable, which afford abundant means for the life
and support of those natives. If agriculture does not furnish most
abundant products, because of the nature of the soil in Bohol, those
natives do not for that reason sleep in inactivity; they go to seek
their living where they can find it. They do not abhor work, which
is the true fount of all means of subsistence. They undertake voyages
by land and sea, with the praiseworthy purpose of making their living
by virtue of their fatigues and labors. This is the exact description
of the inhabitants of Bohol; and this is what has been obtained from
those people (from whom religion