829. Of the three religious newly assigned, father Fray Nicolàs established his residence in Taytày; the second was located in the island of Dumaràn; and the third in the village of Tancòn. From those places they labored according to their strength, until the arrival at Philipinas of the band of missionaries which was conducted by the father commissary, Fray Juan de la Madre de Dios, which entered Manìla in October 1684, when a greater number of missionaries could be assigned, as was very necessary for the direction of so many Indians. For the extensive territory which was formerly administered by only one cura, has later given worthy employment to five, six, or seven of our religious, to say nothing of the two at the least, who have been stationed continually in the islands of Cùyo. Hence one may infer how much the Catholic faith has been extended there, now by reducing into the villages the many natives who had fled to the mountains, after abandoning almost entirely their Christian obligations; now by undeceiving others who lack but little of becoming Moros, because of their nearness and intercourse with those people; and now by penetrating into the roughest mountains of Paràgua in order to draw the souls from the darkness of paganism to the agreeable light of the Christian religion. 830. In regard to these particulars, we consider it necessary to reproduce at this point a portion of a letter written May 28, 1683, to our father vicar-general, Fray Juan de la Presentacion, by the recently-elected father provincial of those islands, Fray Isidoro de Jesus Maria, a person well known in Europa for the literary productions which he has published. He speaks, then, as follows: "The urgings of the Indians of the province of Calamiànes to the ecclesiastical and secular government and to my predecessors, have availed so much, that this province has judged that the precept of Christian charity demands us to return to that administration, trusting in God our Lord for the relief of the very great disadvantages which had compelled our religious who had administered and reared that field of Christendom from its beginning, to withdraw from that province. At the present it has increased by more than two thousand souls who have been drawn from the mountains in less than three years, as can be seen from the relations sent to the chapter. Greater fruits are hoped for, because in the past year of 82, the ambassador of the king of Borney in the name of his prince, arranged with the governor of these islands for the cession of a not small amount of land and number of settlements, which are subject to the said Bornèy--one in the island of Paràgua, one of the islands of Calamiànes. The confirmation of the pact with his ambassador is awaited from Bornèy, so that that district may really be incorporated with the rest which is subject to the king our sovereign; and consequently, to introduce by means of our religious,