, and carried Olmedo to Camarines with a pair of
fetters, where he remained until the date [of the letter], without
the cabildo having taken any steps for his liberation.

DISCOVERY OF THE PALAOS ISLANDS

Letters written from Manila, June 10, 1697, by Father Paul Clain [4]
of the Society of Jesus to Reverend Father Tirso Gonzalez, general
of the same Society, on the new discovery that has been made of
thirty-two islands, south of the Marianas Islands.

After the departure of the vessel which was commissioned with the
letters which I wrote during the year past to your Paternity, there
arrived another which brought me the order to accompany the reverend
father Antonio Fuccio, [5] of Sicily, the new provincial of this
province. Making with him the circuit of our houses, I have taken
a survey of the country of the Pintados. There are large islands
separated from one another by arms of the sea, in which the tide
renders navigation difficult and dangerous. There are in these islands
seventy-seven thousand Christians, under the spiritual direction of
forty-one missionaries of our Society, who have with them two of our
brothers who provide for their subsistence.

I can scarcely express to you, my reverend Father, how I have been
moved at the sight of these poor Indians, of whom there are many who
die without receiving the sacraments of the church, in great danger
of their eternal salvation: because there are so few priests here,
that the majority of them have charge of two villages at the same
time. When it happens that they are occupied in one place, fulfilling
the functions of their ministry, they are not able to assist those
who die in the other. I have been still more greatly moved by the
forsaken condition in which we found several other persons, who died
in the islands that are called Pais. Although these islands are not
far from the Marianas, their inhabitants have no intercourse with
those of the latter group. The discovery of this new country has this
year been made certain, as is here recounted.

In making the visitation with the father provincial, as I have already
said, we arrived at the village of Guivam, [6] on the island of Samal,
the largest and southernmost island of the Eastern Pintados. We
found there twenty-nine Palaos, or natives of these newly-discovered
islands. The easterly winds which rule over these seas from the month
of December to the month of May had blown them three hundred legu