[198] What fault do the Indians have in trying to get and defend their own? There may be excess in this matter, says Delgado (p. 313), but the Indians do not go to law only to cause trouble. [199] M. and D. omit this sentence. [200] In regard to this Delgado says (pp. 313, 314) that "there is no dish more relished in this land than defamation and complaint.... This is a country where idleness sits enthroned; for when the ship is despatched to Nueva España there is nothing to do for a whole year, but to complain and discuss the lives of others." Delgado does not believe that lust is the only feature in the intercourse between men and women. Neither does he believe that women are treated, as they deserve, with kicks and blows; nor that such treatment is in accordance with conjugal love, or with the text of women being subject to men. San Agustin's advice to Europeans is not good. [201] The Ayer MS. and M. read "Machiabelo;" D. reads "Macabeo," i.e., "Maccabæan." [202] From this point M. and D. read: "They call this mabibig, and this is a thing that will rouse up the entire village against one, the stones, and the land itself. Hence, the concubinages among them, and other evils, have no human remedy, nor can have; for no one wishes to be mabibig, for that is the most abominable fault and the only sin among them." [203] The Indians do not tell tales of one another for a more potent reason than that of being declared mabibig, is Delgado's commentary (pp. 314, 315)--namely, the fear, of private revenge. "But the prudent Indians always advise the father minister, if there is any scandal in the village; now in confession, so that it might be remedied without anyone knowing the person who has told it; now by a fictitious and anonymous letter, as has happened to me several times. One must exercise prudence in this matter, for all that is written or spoken is not generally true." [204] M. and D. read with some slight verbal differences, which translate the same: "For one might happen to have a servant or two who waste and destroy the property of their master, and no other servant, however kindly he has been treated by his master, will tell him what is happening." [205] "This league of the caste of color for mutual protection and defense from the domineering caste is very natural. The Filipinos are not so constant in maintaining it, however, that it is not broken by two methods: by offering money to the accuser, or by bestowing so many lashes on each one who is implicated in the crime." (Mas, p. 109.) [206] Delgado (p. 315) finds this very natural, and dismisses it by the reflection that liberty is dear. [207] In M. and D. this reads: "Therefore when they say that there is no more sugar or no more oil, it is when there is not [sugar] enough to make a cup of chocolate, or oil enough to whet a knife."