e opposite coast]. FatherFray
Agustin de San Ildephonso, a learned and holy religious, dies in
Toboso.

The Year 1662

Sec. I

The missions of the Contracosta, whither the preaching has spread,
are received into our province of Philipinas, and four convents
are founded.

64. [The Philippines, says our author, may be regarded as the limits
of the earth, and hence the text of Isaias xviii, 2, may be regarded
as spoken of the Philippines, in which the gospel is to be published.]

65. In obedience to the insinuation of that text, even before the
roots necessary for its subsistence had been fixed our discalced
congregation despatched apostolic missionaries to the above-mentioned
islands, in order that they might be illumined by the splendors
of the evangelical doctrine, and enriched by the examples of its
angelic perfection. It was not content with that first squadron,
for the undertaking commenced has been prosecuted at various times,
and a great number of its sons have been sacrificed to an undertaking
as arduous as useful. We have already seen in the preceding volumes,
the greatness of their actions in the conversion of the most terrible
peoples of that archipelago, in Zambales, Carahaga, Calamianes, and
the islands of Romblon. In this volume we shall treat of the spread
of the faith, which was extended into other villages, a proof that
new zeal has ever been gathered, also born of the salvation of their
neighbors. But at present we shall speak of a new field, which was
handed over to the cultivation of our ever sure workers in the island
of Luzon and the Contracosta of Manila. And although that field was
abandoned afterwards for lack of evangelical ministers, there is no
reason why endeavors so meritorious should be forgotten. Let our pen,
therefore, be busied in the relation of these labors.

66. The island of Luzon, which is the largest and chiefest of the
Philipinas, has the appearance of an arm somewhat bent, according to
the description of father Fray Juan Francisco de San Antonio. [13]
It has a circumference of more than four hundred Spanish leguas, and
lies between twelve and nineteen degrees of latitude. Not far from the
point of San Tiago, which we shall pretend to be the elbow of this arm,
journeying thence toward cape Bogeador, lies the great bay of Manila,
in the center of which this city is located. It is the capital of all
the possessions of the Spanish scepter in these islands. Lapping the
wal