Eighty years had passed since Christianity was first planted in this country in the island of Luçon, the chief island of the Philippinas. From here it had spread to other islands; and in Luçon it had spread from one province to the next, for in this one island there are many nations and languages. Yet the province of Ytui [49]--as we shall call it in future, since it is better known by that name--had not had the good fortune to receive regular preaching before this late date, namely, the beginning of the year thirty-three. This delay was not due to the fault of the natives, for they have often manifested a desire to receive the gospel, and have asked several religious orders for ministers to teach them; but to the fact that all the orders were so poor in ministers, on account of the great number of people whom they must aid. That country also is so rough and so difficult of access for the visitations of the superiors, that all the orders have avoided assuming the charge of it. For some years the order of the glorious father St. Francis sent religious there to cultivate it, but without any good result. They made a beginning, but could not carry it on--some of the fathers being taken away by death, and others leaving the region because of sickness. The natives have constantly persisted in their request for ministers of the gospel to teach them, and have been particularly urgent with our sacred order--because they have some commerce with the province of Pangasinan, which is in our charge; and because they know how much that is advanced in all matters, both temporal and spiritual, as a result of the labors of the fathers who minister to it, though the population was previously the most barbarous known in these islands. Once, some years ago, some chiefs came here to Manila during a chapter when a provincial was elected, to place their request before it. The fiscal of the king (who was also that of the royal Chancillería), Don Juan de Bracamonte, offered a petition to the definitors, supporting this request for ministers for that province, since the Indians were vassals of the king and paid him their tribute, and his Majesty was bound to provide them with Christian instruction. The answer was a hopeful one, saying that if his Majesty would send ministers from España they would then very readily be assigned to this duty, as he desired; but in the meantime the order could scarcely fulfil the requirements of the regions which they had already in charge, for the Indians were many and the ministers few. On another occasion when the father provincial of the province, Fray Baltasar Fort, was making his visitation to this province of Pangasinan, the inhabitants of Ytui learned of the fact; and there came to meet him, in a village called Calasiao, some thirty of the chief Indians of that country--among them he who was, as it were, their king. He brought with him his wife and his sister; and they