The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume 31, 1640

Chapter XLV
Father Fray Juan de Castro, one of the first founders of this province

[When father Fray Juan de Chrisostomo went to Rome to get the documents necessary for founding the new province, he carefully looked in every one of the convents that he visited for men of the devotion, prudence, and holiness which he regarded as necessary for a firm establishment of the new province. In it the rule and the constitutions were to be punctually observed, and the religious were not to be contented with observing them as others do, for we all profess to observe them as they were written. He purposed to make this province one of such virtue that it should be not only holy in itself, but should have power by the aid of the Lord to fix holiness and virtue in the souls of persons so alienated from them as were these Indians, who had always been in the service of the devil. Among those upon whom father Fray Juan Chrisostomo turned his eyes was father Juan de Castro, of the convent of Sancta Cathalina in Barcelona. He was from the city of Burgos, and was the nephew of the other father, Fray Juan de Castro, the provincial of this province. God always shows His power in His saints; but to be superior among many saints, to shine with special glory among shining stars, is a much more marvelous effect of the divine grace. Such was father Fray Juan de Castro in this convent, which of itself has the name of being a very religious one; and father Fray Juan Chrisostomo selected him for the high end which he designed. Christ our Lord did not need to seek for holy men. His divine power was such that He could make apostles of great sinners, like St. Matthew or St. Paul; but Father Juan Chrisostomo, being a man, was obliged to choose, for the foundation of the province upon which he had begun, persons whose holiness was already formed. In order to obtain father Fray Juan de Castro, he caused the general of the order to assign him by name to the new enterprise. In this way the convent of Barcelona, much as they regretted losing Father Juan de Castro, were obliged to let him go to the Philippinas. His uncle, having been appointed to the leadership of this company, sent his nephew to the most laborious, but most meritorious part of the work – namely, to the province of Pangasinan. Father Fray Juan, to save the other fathers from hardship, carried water from the river, brought and split the wood, kindled and stirred the fire, and was, in a word, the servant of the rest; he anticipated all the others in these works and labors, so that the rest of the religious might not be wearied out, and that the Indians might not be annoyed, or feel ill-will toward the preachers of the gospel, by being forced, against their declared intention, to bring what was necessary for the services of the church and of the poor convent. He suffered the lack of food with special content and joy. He took great care of the neatness and cleanliness of the church and the altar. In spiritual things he distinguished himself as he did in these material labors; yet his uncle did not appoint him to any place as superior, but gave him that which he most delighted in, the position of the greatest labor and the lowest honor. When the heaviest part of the duty in Pangasinan was over, the Lord ordained that he should seek labor somewhere else. It was decided to send an embassy to China after the death of the governor, Gomez Perez das Mariñas. He had been killed by some Chinese traitors, who had afterwards made their escape with the galley, in which was the royal standard, much good artillery, and other things of value. The purpose of the embassy was to demand justice upon these traitors. On account of father Fray Juan Cobo’s success in the embassy to Japan, it was decided to select religious of the same order for the present embassy. Father Fray Luis Gandullo was accordingly chosen, and named as his associate father Fray Juan de Castro. As secular ambassador went Don Fernando de Castro, cousin of the governor who sent the embassy, and nephew of the dead governor. A storm blew them out of their course toward the province of Chincheo, to which they had intended to go, and drove them to the province of Canton, one of the thirteen into which the Chinese realm is divided. As the Chinese there had had no dealings with the people of Manila, they did not receive the ambassadors with the respect due their office, or with the kindness which ought to be shown to men who had suffered so from the storms of the sea. They were arrested on the charge of piracy, but, by giving two hostages, they obtained somewhat better treatment. They were finally permitted to go to Macan, and afterward proceeded to Chincheo, but could not find a trace of the galley which they were looking for. The traitors had not gone back to their own country, but to a neighboring kingdom which was less civilized and had less justice. Some of them, not expecting to be recognized, afterward ventured to go to Malaca, and paid for their crime with death. At last the ambassadors returned, without having obtained any of the results which were desired from the embassy. The fathers, however, had at least carried the sweet savor of the Christian religion to those regions. On the return journey, they met with such a storm that the vessel was lost, and the people aboard her had to save themselves by swimming. Father Fray Juan de Castro was carried by a plank to the coast of Pangasinan, a day’s journey from the coast of Bolinao, where the wreck occurred. The exposure brought on a severe illness. Father Fray Juan was taken to Manila and died in the hospital of the Chinese, passing away serenely and devoutly.]

Chapter XLVI
The journey made by the father provincial Fray Alonso Ximenez to Camboxa

[After father Fray Alonso Ximenez had completed his provincialate, he went to Camboxa to preach the gospel there. Circumstances seemed to make this absolutely necessary. In 1595 there came to the city of Manila as ambassadors from the king of Camboxa two soldiers – a Portuguese, named Diego Velloso; and a Castilian, a native of La Mancha, named Blas Ruiz de Fernan Goncales. The kingdom of Camboxa is on the mainland, like China and like Spain. The king asked the governor of Manila for soldiers to assist in the defense of his kingdom against the king of Siam, his neighbor; and also for Dominican friars, to preach the law of God in his kingdom. The people of Camboja have special knowledge of our order because of some religious, from the India of Portugal, who lived there a long time.¹⁰ One of them, named Fray Silvestre, was so highly esteemed by the king that he had him about his person continually. The Portuguese, however, were unwilling to attempt the conversion of this region, because they thought, and quite properly, that they could not carry it on to advantage from India. The governor, in spite of the small force of soldiers which he had, and the religious order, although likewise they had but few laborers, decided to do what they could to fulfil the wishes of the king. The order accordingly appointed the father provincial, who was within a few months of the end of his term. The governor gave him the title of ambassador, associating with him in the embassy the commander of the forces, Captain Juan Xuarez Gallinato. Great difficulty was found in providing an ecclesiastical companion for the father provincial, as those who were at first suggested could not be spared from their duties. Finally I was appointed, accepting this duty in accordance with my vow of obedience. Three vessels were prepared for the expedition, one of them of Spanish build, the other two of the sort used in this country which are known as juncos. These are large boats, and carry a great deal of freight; but they are weakly built to meet the storms, and have very little rigging on their masts, and accordingly are easily lost in bad weather. A hundred and thirty soldiers were collected, most of them without permission of the governor, who had given his license for only forty. There were also some Japanese, who are too much given to rashness in war; and some Indians of this country, who on occasions of honor are very good auxiliaries. The leader of the expedition [i. e., Gallinato] commanded the frigate; Diego Velloso, the smaller junk, in which we religious went; and Blas Ruiz de Fernan Gonçalez, the larger, which contained most of the forces.¹¹ January 18, 1596, we set sail from the harbor of Manila, badly equipped and worse accommodated, as usually happens on such occasions. We went to the island of Luban,¹² fourteen leguas from the fort, to finish our preparations for the voyage, which, though it is but a short one (only two hundred leguas in length), is across a treacherous sea; for the best-fitted vessels often suffer severely upon it, much more so those which are poorly equipped, as were ours. The frigate and the smaller junk made port that night; but the larger junk was unable to enter, and was not to be seen in the morning. We assumed, as was true, that it had taken advantage of the favorable wind and proceeded with its journey. We were, however, anxious; because it was not well supplied with food or water, though it was better supplied than the other vessels. Two days afterward, we set sail; but on a calm sea, and with the wind fair, our mainmast snapped as if it had been made of candy. It was all rotten; and we were left like a cart on the water, with nothing but our foresail, and that very small. The flagship took us in tow and we towed a small boat with four Chinese sailors, which was the cause of no little trouble. We sailed in this way for eight days, the sea being calm. One night at the end of this time, the boat cable broke. The sailors that were in the boat called out for us to wait for them; and the flagship hove to, and began to sound while we were waiting for the boat. Finding bottom in forty brazas, they perceived that we were near the country of Camboja. In order to reach port early on the following day, they left us, thinking that in spite of the smallness of our sail we could reach there on the same day. The result, however, was not as was expected; for by bad navigation we had gone many leguas to leeward of the port. To make our way back there we had to sail against the wind. A storm arose soon after, and the flagship was obliged to run before the wind; it made port in Malaca, more than two hundred leguas to leeward of its destination, and was unable to return for three months. Our vessel could not make sail against the sea, being entirely unequipped, and good for nothing but to ask for the mercy of God. Under these circumstances fell the night between the eighth and ninth of February. We all supposed that this was the last of our days, and no man expected to see the next morning. The force of the wind drove us aground more than two leguas from shore; we had to cut away the stump of the mainmast, which was still standing, and to throw into the sea the rudder and everything there was in the ship. The boat, which might have saved us, was swamped; and the sailors who were in it got aboard the ship. The waves broke over the vessel, but could not sink it because it was already fast aground.] I sat all that night in the waist (for it was impossible to stand), confessing the Christians and catechizing the heathen. I baptized twenty-two of them, feeling that the great danger in which we were, authorized the act. When they had all received the sacraments, I encouraged them to the work which was necessary to keep us from perishing. Several times I went into the poop to confess myself, and to receive the confession of the holy old man, my provincial, who was there waiting for death – at the point of which we now were, with the rope, as they say, about our necks. We could do nothing but put up supplications and appeal from the justice to the mercy of God, by whom sentence of death seemed to have been issued upon us. It was, however, only a sentence of warning; and He accepted our prayer for the time, giving us hope that with His aid we might atone for our transgressions. The efficacy of God’s mercy we almost felt with our hands on this occasion; for death appeared to be actually upon us, making execution upon the lives of those who were there. We were somewhat encouraged by the hope of reaching the land which was so near to us; but we did not know what it was, and what we were to expect from it. If we had known, we would have preferred to die in the sea; for our sufferings in this way would have been less than those which we underwent by reaching the land. We were like those of whom Jeremiah speaks in his Lamentations, for whom it would have been better to have the lot of those who died with the sword at one stroke than of those whose lives were brought to an end by hunger; for the latter died a prolonged and painful death, being destroyed by the barrenness of the land. The barrenness of this coast was such that it greatly exceeded that of which Jeremiah speaks. It was such that no one would go to it, even to escape death, unless, like us, he was not acquainted with it. Finally those waves which were on their way to burst upon the shore pushed on the ship, which was practically empty, and went along as if it had been a dry stick. This was a result of the coming in of the tide, and when the tide ebbed afterwards, we were left aground, a cannon-shot from the sea; and we saw in the mud (of which all this coast is composed) the track of the ship like a trench, for the force of the sea as it rose had pushed it along, breaking a road in the very ground. On this same day the tide came in again with such fury, because it was a spring-tide, that it carried the ship up to the trees and even buffeted it about there with such violence that we were obliged to disembark for fear of perishing in it. When we were on shore, exploring parties went off in various directions. After they had made an arduous march, they brought back the news that it was a wilderness inhabited only by wild beasts, without any trace of a river or a spring, at least near the coast; and that the country within proved to be inaccessible because it was overflowed and very thickly overgrown. This news made us feel that the sea was less evil for us than such a land, and that the tortures which we had endured were slight compared with those to which we were exposed by this desired but unhappy landing. Since eating and drinking are a necessary and a daily obligation, and as our supply of food and drink was very small, while we were more than a hundred persons, we put forth all our energies to search for some remedy. As thirst was that from which we suffered most, we dug wells in the dryest parts we found, and when we met water, it was more salty than that of the sea. I declare, as one who has found out by experience, that the very dew which appeared in the morning on the leaves of the wild trees there, was salt. Hence since the land denied us the sustenance which we required, we determined to return to the sea, which had at least granted us our lives, and which now gave us greater hopes than the land of being able to preserve them. For this it was necessary to help ourselves by means of the unlucky ship which was stranded on the shore, for it had remained there after the spring tide was over. It had no masts, or sails, or rudder, or anything that could be used, because between losing them and perishing there had been no choice. To supply these, it was necessary to put our hands to the work, until it was finished. The most necessary thing to be done to the ship was to cut it down and fit it so that it would draw but little water, and might be rowed along the coast. Our relief was to be sought on land, but he who should find it had to seek for it by sea. We were not now planning for conquests or embassies, but for getting water – for which we would have given all that has been yielded by the hill of Potosi, if it had been ours. We spent ten days in getting the ship ready. We cast overboard all the upper works and a good part of the under works. We fitted to it twelve oars. In this way it was like a badly made galliot; rudder, masts, and sails we replaced by rowing. While some of us were at this work, others went to explore the country, doing their utmost in the search for water. Some of these came back very joyful, with good news, saying that about four leguas up the coast from there a great river ran up into the land; that where it flowed into the sea the water was salt, but that it must be fresh above. They also said that they had seen the footprints of men on the shore. The work was hurried on in the hope of satisfying our thirst, which was increased by it, and still more by the heat of that region; for we were in the most torrid part of the torrid zone, and had practically no defense or covering against the heat. The vessel, being of so light a draught, was easily launched; and embarking in it all that we had left of provisions and clothes, which was very little, we put forth one evening and entered the bight of the river of which we have spoken, reaching its mouth in the morning by hard rowing. We entered it with great delight, which was increased by the sight of a hut on the bank not far from the ocean. Though there was no one in it, we promised ourselves large towns when we saw it, and even assured ourselves of certain news of our companions, of whom as yet we knew nothing, nor they of us. But within a few days we found out the deceit and lost our joy in it. After going for three days up the river, we constantly found the water salt like that of the sea, whose arm it was, and not a river. Upon its banks on either side there was nothing but impassable undergrowth. At last we reached a point from which we could not go further up, because the seeming river divided into so many little creeks that the ship had not room in any of them. The change from the false hope of water and of towns, which had possessed our minds, served to redouble our misery; since now, as it seemed to us, we had lost the hope of relief by land or by sea. Our necessity had now reached such an extreme that the food was distributed by ounces, and the drink almost by drops – though the labor of rowing, each man in his turn (from which no one was excused), was such as to require much food; and the heat was so excessive that even if we had been in idleness we should have needed much to drink. But at last, having confidence in the Father of mercies – who, though He distresses, does not overwhelm; and, though He chastises, does not slay – we returned to the sea by which we had come. At sight of it we left the vessel, in order to rest a little from the labor which we had endured to attain that for which we were hoping; and I went on land with my four Chinese (with whom I was very intimate), and had them build a little boat of four planks – fastened together by some twigs, so to speak, for we had no nails; and calked with clay, for we had no tow, or any other thing better than the clay. This made a sort of canoe. If awkwardly handled, it filled with water. But, such as it was, I had two of the soldiers get into it – for if they kept close to shore they would run no risk – and told them to go up to the hut that we had seen to discover whether there were any people there; because perhaps they had hidden themselves, from fear of our vessel, when they saw it on the way up the river. They did so, and at nightfall they discovered two grown Indians and a boy. They made their way up to them, little by little; and when they got near them they found that they were asleep on the shore, not expecting anything to happen to them. They caught the Indians, and bound them. When the rest of us came by soon after in our ship, they called out from the land, telling us what they had done. Our joy was so great that to render thanks the holy old man and I sang a Te Deum laudamus; and at this hour, which was midnight, half a cuartillo [i. e., pint] of water was served out to the troops in token of joy. The soldiers came on board with their captives, treating them gently and showing them all sorts of kindness. It seemed to us that God had sent them to us as angels to guide us, as He sent St. Raphael to Tobias. We began to put questions to them by an interpreter, asking what country this was, what population it had; and where they had come from, and where they ate and drank. They answered that they were from Camboxa, and that the country along this coast, and inland for many leguas, was uninhabited; and that to go to the towns we should have to enter a large river and to sail up for eighty leguas. They said that large vessels went up the river, and that it was many leguas to windward of this place. They declared that they were natives of that country, slaves of one of its chief lords; and that, because of the ill treatment which they had received, they had fled from him, and had come hither where no man had ever landed. They said that they ate nothing except shell-fish, which they caught with their hands, and wild cocoanuts, that grew there; and that they had no other water except what fell from heaven. When it rained they caught what they could and kept it in some large reeds to drink afterward. They said that two years had passed since they had come there. The effect of such sad news upon the hearts of men who had suffered as we had may easily be imagined. They also told us that some days’ journey further there was a port; but that, if we meant to go inland, where the king was, it would be necessary to leave the vessel at the port, because there was no river that entered inland. Since our desire was only not to die of thirst, any means by which we could get water seemed easy and light to us. We accordingly set out by sea in search of this port, taking these Indians with us, not with the purpose of increasing consumers when we had so little to consume, but to have guides. We went along the coast, running up to it very often wherever we thought we saw any signs of water, and sometimes digging wells, but always in vain, for the land could not give what it did not have. On the day of St. Matthew the Apostle, we discovered a high island in the sea, named Pulonubi.¹³ It was about six leguas from land. We laid our course toward it in search of water, thinking that doubtless it would have some, being high and mountainous, and having a sandy shore; but as the equipment of the ship was fastened on with pins, as the saying is, our rudder broke, when we had gone out a legua to sea. Being buffeted by the slight sea which was running, we had to return to land, and even to run aground, in order to mend the rudder. The Lord seemed to have declared that He intended to bring death upon us, because the sustenance necessary for our life was entirely consumed; for since we had no water, we were not only without drink, but also without food, our provision being rice, which cannot be eaten unless it is boiled in water. For lack of water, some ate it parched, which dried their entrails. Others ate it imperfectly boiled in the steam of salt water, putting it in a little basket over a pot of this water on the fire, so that by the steam thus sent out it might be softened. The water was so salt that it made the rice like itself, and left it uneatable. There were some who, even after this fine example of cookery, drank sea-water, which increased the thirst they were so impatiently desiring to remedy. Others distilled it over the fire and got some fresh water, but very little, at the expense of much wood and with the necessity of keeping up fire day and night, which dried them more than the water that they got moistened them. All this taught us the great need in which we live, with our life on a thread, and the Lord many times threatening to cut it short. When we had mended the rudder as well as we could at the time, we went on up the coast, being disillusioned, so that we would not have thought of going out to sea even if the ocean had been as smooth as milk. Three days later, the twenty-seventh of February, which was Shrove Tuesday, we took our hands from the oars and placed ourselves in those of God, despairing of life. The remedy came to us as from God’s own hand without our expecting it, when we were overcome by labor, and dying of hunger and thirst, and had given up ourselves to death. Thus it is most certain that the Lord comes to the aid of him who calls upon Him when all things created fail him – blessed be God’s holy name. We had reached such an extremity that of that sorry ration of water which we had now had about a month, and which was less than half a cuartillo daily for each person, there was only enough for two days. We were not now thinking of making any effort to find any, but had our minds wholly turned to preparing ourselves for death, when the Lord of life ordained that the waves of the sea should drive us into a little inlet which the land formed there, where we went on shore with the intention of never leaving the place, but of ending in it our voyage and our lives. It happened that one of the Indians in the ship went to bathe in the water, to relieve the great heat from which he suffered, and somewhat to moderate the thirst which was destroying us. He swam to land, and there right on the shore (which was muddy, like all of that along which we had coasted), his feet sank in at the foot of a wild palm-tree. Feeling that they had gone into water, he drew them out, applied his lips to the hole which he had made, and found that the water was fresh. The thirst from which he suffered not permitting him to wait until it settled, he drank mud and water until he was satisfied. He shouted to us to tell us what he had discovered, but no one believed him. At last, the Indian persisting in his affirmation, all hurried to the water to look upon this marvel, which might be compared to that which God performed in drawing water from a rock that His people might drink in the desert; for no less miraculous appeared to us this fresh water in a marsh so near the ocean. We gave God a thousand thanks, and rejoicing in the feast, we forgot the labor and the fasting which we had undergone in the long vigil. We easily dug a well, for the whole soil was muddy, and on the next morning we filled all our casks with the water, which had now settled. We set sail to look for food, and even aspired to greater things. [In a few days we reached the port, where there was a garrison of Indians against their neighbors, the Siamese. All the news which we obtained about our comrades, and about the country to which we had come, was bad. The flagship had not been heard of, and the other ship was at Churdumuco, which is a large town eight leguas from the port and eighty from the sea.¹⁴ We were told that the king who had sent for us from Manila, and whose name was Langara, was not in the country; but that his place in the kingdom had been taken by his chief vassal, because of the following circumstances. The king of Sian had made war against the king of Camboja, with eight hundred thousand men. This number should not astonish anyone, because the kings could make war almost at no expense, their vassals providing their own arms and food. The king of Camboja did not dare to wait for so great a multitude of enemies, and retreated up the river to another kingdom known as that of the Laos. The king of Siam made himself master of the country, and after burning it all returned to his own country, being harassed by hunger, which made more war upon him than did the king his enemy. The army being in disorder, one of the chiefs of Camboja, with those who had retreated to the mountains (about thirty thousand men), attacked his rearguard, thus obliging him to hasten his retreat. This chief, having conquered him who had conquered his king, took possession of the kingdom. The new king regarded those who had come at the request of the previous king as allies of his enemy, and therefore as his own enemies. This news alarmed us greatly, as we were without our comrades, our commander-in-chief, and our ships. However, being obliged to disembark, and to put ourselves into the hands of the rulers of the country, we made an honest man of the thief, as the proverb goes, and decided to send a soldier to him as an ambassador – offering to him our aid and service, on the ground that we had come to help the king of this country, and found no other king in it but him. The king received him kindly, saying that he only held the kingdom as a regent, and that he was ready to restore it to the lawful king when he should return. He sent an order to the mandarin of the coast where we were, to provide us with boats and carts. The soldier on his return met the Spaniards of the other ship, and learned from them that all that the king had said was false and that his purpose was to kill us at his ease. They advised us to join them in their ship, dissimulating in regard to our affairs, and keeping on our guard. The father provincial sent me ahead to confess those in the ship, because it was Lent, and they had sent to him to ask for a confessor. I was on foot and suffered much, although some things that I saw on the journey afforded me some alleviation of these hardships. I one day reached a village where there was a monastery of religious of their sort, of whom there are many in this kingdom. I went to it and talked to a venerable old man, who was as it were the superior of it. He was seated on a little platform about a palm’s breadth in height, with a small mat on it, and the others sat on the ground. Without saying anything, I sat down next to the old man – at which they smiled, thinking that I had done so because I did not understand the custom of the country, which did not permit that. We both showed each other much courtesy by signs, and I by using some words of their language which I knew, although, because I did not put them together properly, they laughed much. They gave me a collation of some fruits; and the sacristan immediately took me to his temple, which was at some distance from the house. It had a sort of cemetery about it, surrounded by some slightly raised stones which divided it from the rest. The door to the temple was small, and the temple itself was arched, round, and small. (Here follows a full account of the appearance of the temple. Some description of their prayers and of their religious customs is also given. Aduarte states, upon the authority of the Portuguese religious, that these native monks are vicious and licentious in the extreme.) I finally reached the ship of our people, and on both sides we told each other what had happened.]