On the thirteenth of the same month of December, when we had concluded our occupation in the holy faith, we returned to Caraga, postponing for a later time, although we regretted it keenly, the visit to the small villages near Manurígao and San Luis; for we were compelled to return as I had not yet performed the holy exercises of the year, and it was near the feast of the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ. That fine feast came, and I saw for the first time how the good inhabitants of Caraga celebrated it. I noted no rich jewels and refined music in the church. All was simplicity and poverty, like a new parish recently separated from its metropolitan, and given over to its own life with few resources, in a most wretched country. Neither did I observe in the village anything of that excessive luxury, and the annoying diversions with which in other parts, the Christians of divided heart try falsely to honor God. Caraga, in spite of its antiquity of two centuries, with its excellent lands, and its established reputation of producing excellent cacao, coffee, [97] and tobacco, is a small, poor, and simple village. The chief causes of that are that it has been deserted by several old families who have settled in the small villages recently established, and although it has increased somewhat with the new Christians, who have been converted from the beliefs of the Mandayas, the latter are as a rule, both simple and indolent and but little accustomed to work, and they need rather to be aided, instead of being able to give aid to the others. But the reason which has had, and has, most influence in the above is their isolation which is caused by the very poor sea and land communication which make that region the most remote and forgotten one of these islands and (if I may use the word), as it were, the finis terræ. [98] Hence, it receives but little life from without, and is forced to live on its narrow resources and few means of subsistence. Consequently, wholly and precisely for the above reasons, its method of existence and of celebrating its feasts has, I know not what, which attracts and satisfies. This is born of the characteristic simplicity and open and jovial nature of these people of Caraga, from the fraternal union with which all, both great and small, those who have something and those who have nothing, unite to take part in the feasts and common joy, and finally from the expansive communication, without an admixture of any sort of fear, which they have with the father missionaries whom they regard and love as their dear fathers.