This befell a father and a brother while journeying along a sandy
tract, greatly fatigued by the heat of the noonday sun, without any
restorative or food, and parched with thirst--in short, deprived of
everything that might serve them as a relief or comfort; yet enduring
their suffering and with devout meditation offering to God that
hardship, even desiring that it might be increased if his Majesty
might thus be served. Unexpectedly and suddenly they descried a man
seated in the midst of the sand, with a collation of fresh cocoanuts
and other fruits; and so gracious and serene was his appearance that
he inspired admiration and pleasure. When the fathers and those who
accompanied them accepted from him those delicacies, refreshing their
heated bodies and appeasing their hunger, this man displayed unusual
satisfaction and joy, inviting them to partake of more, since what he
possessed was theirs, and he was a servant of the Spaniards. With this
they continued their journey (which otherwise would have been very
wearisome), giving thanks to Him who had thus succored them in their
dire necessity. Although at the time the father took little notice of
this incident, afterward recalling the circumstances, as well as the
gracious manner of the man, he became convinced that he must have been
some angel. Nor was he far out of the way, considering the occasion on
which he succored them, when they could not go any farther on account
of the oppressive heat of the season, and the lack of food; the spot
where they had encountered him, a place where it had never occurred
that they found an Indian so solitary and, moreover, unknown; and
then his gracious manner and serene countenance, and his generosity
and liberality in sharing with them what he had, saying that it all
belonged to the fathers, and that he was a servant of the Spaniards
(at a time when there was not one Spaniard in the island): all this
induces the belief that the incident was something more than ordinary,
or, at least, a token of our Lord's especial providence. There can be
no doubt that the incident was most pleasing to Him, on account of the
unusual and extraordinary harvest which He permitted to be gathered
in the village from which the father had that day set out. I shall
not relate this in detail, in order not to repeat the same events,
and to pass on to what yet remains to be narrated, which is much.
The many conversions to the Christian faith in Carigara and
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