[22] Juan Ormaza de Santo Tomás was born at Medina del Campo, in September, 1548. His studies were pursued at Salamanca; after graduation he spent several years in teaching and was engaged in this occupation at Valladolid when Crisóstomo went thither to secure missionaries for Filipinas. Ormaza enlisted in this new field, and, after arriving at Manila, he was assigned to the district of Bataan. Here he "reduced to two villages, with some visitas annexed, the thirty-one hamlets among which the Indians were dispersed; made bridges over the rivers; hindered with palisades (which those people call tabones) the inroads of the sea, which had ruined their grain-fields; and adorned the churches with altars, sacred images, and paintings." During 1610-14 he was engaged in the missions of Japan; the rest of his life, except 1619-21 and 1623-25, when he ministered to the Chinese in the Parián and in Binondoc respectively, was spent at the Manila convent--where he died on September 7, 1638. (Reseña biográfica, i, pp. 86-91.) Pedro de Soto was a native of Burgos, and pursued his priestly studies at Valladolid; soon after his graduation he joined the Filipinas mission. His first charge was in Pangasinan, where he labored zealously, amid great opposition and hostility from the natives. A serious illness at last compelled him to return (1599) to Manila, where he died. [23] Juan Cobo, a native of Castilla, joined the Dominican order at Ocaña, and was a student at Avila and Alcalá de Henares. He came to Nueva España with the mission of 1587; during his stay there (prolonged another year, on account of certain business of the order) he rebuked the viceroy of Mexico so boldly that the latter ordered Cobo to be exiled to the Philippines. Arriving at the islands in May, 1588, he began his labors among the Chinese of the Manila Parián, and later went among those of Tondo. In 1592, Cobo was sent by Dasmariñas as ambassador to Japan; having fulfilled his commission he set out on the return to Manila, and is supposed to have perished by shipwreck, as nothing more was ever known of him or his ship. [24] "Peña de Francia is a lofty mountain in the province and diocese of Salamanca, twelve leguas from this city and seven from Ciudad-Rodrigo. On its rugged summit is the celebrated convent-sanctuary of this name, where the community resided from Easter until November 2, at which time they went down to another house, on the slope of the same mountain, only two or three brethren remaining above for the care of the sanctuary." (Reseña biográfica, i, p. 95, note 1.)