[Once] since the seven months in which I have been able to visit San José of Sámal, I went there lately to say mass and preach to those poor people, at that time solemnizing eight baptisms and one marriage. It is fitting for the Sámals who were always visited and cared for by the father missionaries of Dávao, to be specially visited and cared for now when some of those who formerly showed most opposition, offer themselves for baptism. During this last visit I baptized Mal-lúyan, the headman, a son-in-law of Captain Baguísan. The latter has become a fury, and refuses to allow any of those whom he calls his sácopes to be baptized, and he threatens with his gun the one who does not conform to him, and commits real outrages. He is a madman of a bad kind, worse than Búsao himself. For if the demon looses the chains of heathenism on anyone and that person becomes baptized through the mercy of God, Baguísan hastens to fasten them on again. That happened lately to Cabáis, who, one day going to get his wife in order that they two might be baptized and live in San José with two daughters already Christians, has been detained and rigorously forbidden to present himself before the father. On account of this war against baptism by Baguísan, which is both obligatory and of long standing in Sámal, it is advisable to pay heed to that field of Christendom, so that it may increase, although that increase be but gradual, and so that the entire island may finally be converted. The appointment, by the governor, of the Christians of San José as captain, lieutenant, etc., has produced an excellent result. It might be said that those Christians are the real datos of the island, and the only ones who obey the orders that they receive, who cultivate cacao, and form a true village. The village which your Reverence saw in the old Casalúcan has remained talis qualis. [112] These people if they are not baptized, live in the manner of Baguísan. "A village--and on the beach--in order to live under guard and subject--bah!" they say. "We don't want it! We don't want it!" There is a race, however, or to speak more accurately, the remnant of what was the Moro race, which was formerly predominant on these coasts, whose datos and captains, for fear of being abandoned by the few sácopes whom they still have, are the first ones to present themselves and beg for a village. And since they know that that petition is generally heeded by all the governors who succeed to the district, they easily obtain the support that they ask, and form something that resembles a village, if it be looked at especially from the sea. Thus do they oblige the scattered sácopes to reunite under their datos and panditas, and that is the very thing that they desire, in order that they might maintain their customs and mode of living.