his breeches--which was an easy thing for the snake to do, since these garments are worn loose in this province and resemble polainas. [25] Although the Indians, who knew how poisonous the snake was, cried out and gave him over for dead, father Fray Juan continued with the act which he was performing, because of his duty as a religious, until he had finished burying the Indian; and then, putting his hand in his breeches, he caught the snake by the neck, and drew it out and threw it away, without receiving any harm from it. [When father Fray Juan was vicar of Yrraya, and was living in a village called Abuatan, a fire broke out. Father Fray Juan threw himself on his knees and prayed that the fire should turn away from the village, as it did--making its way straight toward the tambobos, or granaries where the Indians kept their food, the loss of which would have been a greater damage than the burning of the village. In response to the prayers of father Fray Juan, the wind fell and the fire ceased. On one occasion his guardian angel came to accompany him in his prayers. When he was assigned to the vicariate of San Jacintho at Mexico, he embarked in the flagship sent back that year, in which more than sixty persons died because of the hardships and length of the voyage. Father Fray Juan was attacked by some malignant fevers, and when he asked for extreme unction, on the day of St. John the Evangelist, the sailors were so much alarmed at the fear of losing his prayers that they declared that if he died they would not continue their voyage, but would go back to the island of the Ladrones, that they might not perish in the dreadful storms to which they would be exposed if they had not the aid and comfort of father Fray Juan. At the demand of the sailors, the general asked father Fray Juan if they should continue their voyage. The sick man was grieved at being asked that which was reserved for God alone; but he was persuaded to tell what God had given him to know, and made a sign for them to go on. His poor possessions were shared among those of the ship as precious relics; and on the octave of St. John, on the third of January, 1620, a fair wind began to blow. The sailors cried out joyfully: "Father Fray Juan has seen God, and has sent us fair weather." On the seventh of the same month, they began to descry signs of land coming from the coast of Nueva España, whereupon they regarded as fulfilled that which the holy religious had promised them.