It is somewhat difficult, and even dangerous, to answer the question, for if the Katipunan was six months ago relegated to the hills of Laguna and Bulacan among the rebel leaders who were fugitive there, or was dragging out a shameful existence in certain villages that were in communication with the insurgents, today the plague has spread. For the ones pardoned at Biac-na-bató, breaking the promise given to the gallant and energetic marquis de Estella, [205] obedient to the watchword received, have spread through the central provinces; and by using threats and terrible punishments, which have no precedents in the pages of history, nor even of the novel, have succeeded in attracting to their ranks a great number of Indians, even in villages which gave eloquent proof of loyalty to the holy cause of the Spanish fatherland before the submission of Biac-na-bató. They have also succeeded in establishing themselves in Cápiz and in other points of the Visayas: and indeed the movement of Zambales, of Pangasinan, of Ilocos, of Cebú, and of the Katipunans, are at present open in Manila. The thought of what may happen to this beautiful country at any moment terrifies us, for we do not know to what point sectarian fanaticism may go, exploiting the suggestibility of this race and their weak brain by the deeds that they are heralding, brought to a head by them, in regard to the army, whose increase in the proportion that would be necessary to establish a complete military situation, they know to be impossible; by the published exemption from the cédula [206] and other tributes; by the supposed immunity of amulets, called anting-anting; by the illusion that none but Indians will hold office, and that the alcaldes and generals will be from their ranks; by the remembrance that money and confidence were given to the rebels of Cavité, Bulacan, and other points; by the news that their partisans were sending them from Madrid and Hong-kong; by the example of goodly numbers of peninsulars, who are not on their guard against showing their hostility to the religious, in order by that manner to procure the latter's disregard by their parishioners, who even dare to lay hands on them; and by innumerable other methods, too many, in short, to enumerate, but terribly destructive, and of maddening and vigorous influence in these Malayan villages.