themselves--to assassinate our captain-general, even though he should die in the attempt. The deed was to be done with his campilan, a weapon something like a cutlass, with a lead weight at the hilt. The weight makes its blows so terrible that it will cleave a man through the middle. He hid in some bushes near the road on which our men were marching in triumph. When General Esteban Rodriguez de Figueroa reached a place abreast of the bush where the Mindanao was hidden, the latter leaped out unexpectedly and struck the general so fierce a blow on his head with his campilan that it cleft his skull from ear to ear. I can account myself a witness of this, because, although I did not see that event, and did not go to the Filippinas until many years after, yet in 1632 I saw the skull, when they disinterred the bones of this famous but unfortunate captain from the old church of our college at Manila (which he founded, and where his body was brought for burial), to transfer them to the church which we have recently built. The skull shows very plainly the cruel blow of the campilan, so that even I said, as I held it in my hands, with great grief, "Our founder will not deny the blow of the campilan." Those who accompanied our general killed the Mindanao on the spot, without much difficulty. They sounded the retreat, and abandoned their pursuit of the enemy. This was the origin and the beginning of the misfortunes and calamities which for so many years have caused us so much sorrow in the Filippinas. Our army, having lost its leader and captain-general, did nothing further. The Spaniards retreated, and fortified themselves in a place on that river, where they remained in garrison; and Father Juan del Campo, a fervent man and a great minister of the gospel, gave instruction to several villages, until he died there. Many of the Indians along this river had rendered obedience, and were paying tribute to his Majesty. Afterward the garrison moved to another place, called La Caldera, where the Spaniards remained several years. Although they made no conquest of that country, they served as a check to the enemy, because the latter could not sail out with their fleets on plundering expeditions. As Don Pedro de Acuña afterward decided, when he was governor in the Filippinas, this garrison was withdrawn from La Caldera, which resulted in the utter ruin of the islands, because land and sea remained in the possession of the enemy.