Before passing on to the Dominicans we shall mention briefly the linguists of the Society of Jesus. In the early days there were not many Jesuits in the Philippines. However, there were some linguists among them, chiefly of the Visayan tongue, in which they are said to have printed a Doctrina [90] as early as 1610. Limiting ourselves to a note of those who knew Chinese and Tagalog, we find that the first mentioned by Chirino as an outstanding master of one of these was Francisco Almerique, who arrived with Santiago de Vera in 1583. Shortly thereafter he "began the study of the Chinese language in his zeal to aid in the conversion of the many Chinese who came to Manila and whom we in the Philippines call Sangleys." [91] And Colin says "his principal occupation was with the Tagalog Indians, being the first of the Company to learn their language." [92] Nothing further is said of his accomplishments in these languages, but his knowledge would have been available in 1593, for he was then still active in the islands. Chirino himself landed at Manila in 1590 shortly after Dasmarinas, and went almost immediately to Taytay where he learned Tagalog and was joined in 1592 by Martin Henriquez. At the time Juan de Oliver was preaching in that district, and it is exceedingly probable that he helped the newcomers with the language, for Chirino speaks of him in terms of highest praise. Henriquez "learned the language in three months and in six wrote a catechism in it, a confessionary, and a book of sermons for all the gospels of the year in the said idiom," [93] but he died on February 3, 1593 at Taytay. How thoroughly Chirino himself had grasped the fundamentals of Tagalog is evident from his three chapters [94] on the language and letters of the natives in which he prints the Ave Maria in Tagalog and reproduces the Tagalog alphabet--its first appearance in a European publication. But Chirino, who remained in the provinces until 1595, would have mentioned his participation and that of Henriquez in the Doctrina of 1593, so we record them as possible but not probable consultants. THE DOMINICANS