There is another notable Jesuit work to which we owe much of the early history of the great island of Mindanao: this is the Historia de Mindanao y Jolo, by Father Francisco Combes. The year 1663 marked, as we shall see, an epoch in the relations between the Spaniards and the Mohammedan Malays. In that year the Spaniards abandoned the fortress of Zamboanga, and retired from southern Mindanao. The Jesuits had been the missionaries in those parts of the southern archipelago, and they made vigorous protests against the abandonment of Moro territory. One result of their efforts to secure the reoccupancy of these fortresses was the notable work mentioned above. It is the oldest and most important writing about the island and the inhabitants of Mindanao. It was printed in Madrid in 1667. A beautiful and exact edition was brought out a few years ago, by Retana. A Dominican missionary, Father Diego Aduarte, wrote a very important work, the Historia de la Provincia del Sancto Rosario de la Orden de Predicadores en Filipinas, Japon y China, which was printed in Manila at the College of Santo Tomas in 1640. We may also mention as containing a most interesting account of the Philippines about the middle of the seventeenth century, the famous work on China, by the Dominican, Father Fernandez Navarrete, Tratados historicos, politicos, ethnicos, y religiosos de la Monarchia de China, Madrid, 1767. Navarrete arrived in these islands in 1648, and was for a time a cura on the island of Mindoro. Later he was a missionary in China, and then Professor of Divinity in the University of Santo Tomas. His work is translated into English in Churchill's Collection of Voyages and Travels, London, 1744, second volume. The eighteenth century is rather barren of interesting historical matter. There was considerable activity in the production of grammars and dictionaries of the native languages, and more histories of the religious orders were also produced. These latter, while frequently filled with sectarian matter, should not be overlooked. Between the years 1788 and 1792 was published the voluminous Historia General de Filipinas, in fourteen volumes, by the Recollect friar, Father Juan de la Concepcion. The work abounds in superfluous matter and trivial details, yet it is a copious source of information, a veritable mine of historical data, and is perhaps the best known and most frequently used work upon the Philippine Islands. There are a number of sets in the Philippines which can be consulted by the student.