Coming back, now, from this long digression, your Reverence, Father Superior, could not imagine with what pleasure and blessings the Christians of those three visitas above mentioned, of Santa Fe, Manurígao, and San Luis, received the palay which your Reverence gave as an alms for the relief of those places because of that great scarcity of food of which I have spoken above. The heads of the families could not restrain their joy when they found themselves with palay which could be distributed to each one, although it was, it is true, very little compared to their great necessity. "How troublesome we are to you, Fathers," they said, "and how much patience you must have with us. But God will be able to repay you superabundantly for the good that you are doing us. Had we not received help, of a truth, our sick and stricken would have died of hunger and poor food. But now with this palay, we shall have enough to put new life into us, and we shall keep some of it for a small field, which will give us hopes of enduring the famine better later on." So did the poor wretches express themselves. They really planted their fields with the little palay which they could set aside for it; and at the date of the writing of this letter, some fields are seen so luxuriant and with so fine a heading of grain that within one month they are promised a moderate harvest. May God in His goodness preserve those fields and cause them to bear one hundred per cent. The day following our arrival at Santa Fe, and the succeeding days, we managed to assemble in the convent all the Mandayas who appeared in the village. Father Pastells exhorted them to receive the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, and many of them were baptized. Some of them obstinately refused, giving no other reason for their refusal, if reason it can be called, than Ualay gusto co, "I do not wish it." And they could not be changed from that decision, notwithstanding all our arguments and eloquence. That happens to us at various times so that we missionaries may learn that the faith and baptism are gifts of his divine generosity, and that if God do not illumine and impel them with His powerful grace, in vanum laboravimus. [93] But if some of them resisted divine Grace, others, God be thanked, yielded to it, and gladly received holy baptism. All together, adults and children, we baptized forty. Among that number three women whom we call bailanas are worthy of special mention. Those women were clad in their baro or doublet, of a deep-red color throughout, a dress which is peculiar to their profession, and which differentiates them from other women. Since I have mentioned these important persons of Mandaya society, it will not be outside of my design, nor will it be without interest for your Reverence, to say something about the same. The bailanas are, as it were, the priestesses of the Mandayas. They exercise the functions of priestesses, for they offer sacrifices and other offerings to their