Those blacks are the ancient inhabitants of this island of Luzón, which is the chief and largest island where Manila is established; for the other nations of the Indians are lately come from the adjacent islands of Borney and Sumatra. They are not so black as those of Africa, but have a color much clearer, although they are alike in their curly hair. That race is especially wretched and unfortunate, and cowardly and treacherous. They live in the mountains like wild beasts, naked, and without villages or houses. They wander about continually, and sleep on the ground in the open, or in the hollow of some great tree. Their best shelter is formed of some leaves hastily arranged. They excel in hunting, for deer, wild boars, buffaloes, and mountain carabaos abound in these mountains. Their arms are the bow and arrow, in which they are very skilful. Their paganism almost amounts to atheism, for they have no idols or sacrifices, but only some vain superstitions--in which they are so tenacious and blind that if any of them would become a true Christian it would be regarded as a miracle. They are so fond of that manner of living (in which they are not at all different from the brutes) that not only do they not desire to live in settlements like men, but some of them who have been reared from childhood in Manila and other places, run away, and return to the wretchedness of that life when they are grown, and to their nakedness and poverty. [67]... Among the evil inclinations of those unfortunate creatures, the greatest is a ravenous appetite for killing people and cutting off their heads--first of their enemies, but even of their friends and relatives--and that for very slight cause. That cruelty is for them honor, nobility, and estimation. But it is a greater glory to cut off the head of a Spaniard; and, after performing their dances and superstitions before it, they use the skull as a drinking vessel in their greatest feasts. The father definitor, Fray Pedro de Valenzuela, found himself among those barbarous people in the most dangerous part of that wild region, which is a site called Puntalón--a precipice between hills. He refused to take an escort, for he was overconfident; and thus he paid for his carelessness by being shot through with many arrows. Those people cut off his head, which became the occasion of great banquets, dances, and revels. But all the blacks concerned in that act of treachery were overtaken very soon by the punishment of heaven; for they all caught a disease which is called that of St. Lazarus [i.e., leprosy]....