In fact, of the 1142 authors, whose works he has enumerated (Biblioteca, xxxv-xxxvi), Retana states that four hundred and sixty-six are ecclesiastics, that is, ninety-eight secular clergymen and three hundred and sixty-eight members of religious brotherhoods, whereof the Augustinians--the writer's own order--numbering one hundred and forty-one authors, inclusive of thirty-seven Recoletos--the bare-footed branch of that fraternity--figure highest. Next in rank, we have one hundred Dominicans, then fifty-seven Jesuits, fifty-six Franciscans, and fourteen authors of orders not specified. Of these brotherhoods, who thus in Malaysia, as in other quarters of the globe, brought forth so brilliant an array of scholars and philanthropists, the first-named, the Augustinians, with Legazpi, crossing two oceans and one continent therefore, found a home in the Philippines at the conquest of that archipelago in 1565; in 1577 the first Franciscans reached the isles; in 1581, the Dominicans, with the first bishop of Manila (by actual possession), Domingo Salazar, member of the same brotherhood, accompanied too by some Jesuits, while the Recoletos first crossed the Pacific in 1611. These churchmen, with very few exceptions Spanish, with later on a sprinkling of Portuguese, Dutchmen, Germans, Italians and Irishmen, scholars, as a rule, of fair repute, some even of European eminence, from their advent into Polynesia, besides their care in implanting Christian altruism, wherewith only (as history attests) thrive science and art, have toiled ever since to imbue these islanders, whom they found heathen--without letters, laws, or settled abode--with learning, the arts of husbandry, building, carving, painting, weaving, and the like graces of intellectual grandeur--in brief, with whatever of civilization now marks Malaysian genius. From Manila, as centre of intellectual enlightenment for all eastern Asiatic and Polynesian lands in the sixteenth century, were transplanted the germs of philanthropy--of wisdom and charity--to Borneo, the Carolines, Moluccas, as well as the mainland of Asia, to China and Japan, while in India the Portuguese, with headquarters at Goa, fulfilled the same destiny as their Iberian brothers. Speaking of the heroism of these self-exiled churchmen and worshipers of the Christian Minerva in Asiatic tropics, I quote the words of the famed French savant, Elisée Reclus, a witness, by the way, in no measure partial to cloister life. In his Universal Geography [14] he declares that "Los Filipinos son de los pueblos mas civilizados del Extremo Oriente. Los han civilizado los frailes"--that is, "The Philippines are one of the most civilized people of the Far East. The friars have civilized them." III. SOME LITERARY CURIOS AMONG PHILIPPINA.