came afterward.  The fathers did not dare baptize the Indians immediately; for, on the one hand, they feared their fickleness, since they knew with what ease those who had received baptism in the time of General Magallanes, had apostatized.  Besides, the fathers did not know what orders would be given them, or whether they would be commanded to retire.  Thus they were very considerate and circumspect in everything, but did not neglect, for all that, to labor in the field, in order that they might afterward gather abundance of fruit.

The religious endeavored to have the children of the most prominent people come to the convent, or to that house wherein they were living, in order that they might give them instruction, and teach them to read and write.  Since they were the newest plants, necessarily they would receive the teaching better, and the new customs would be impressed more easily upon them than on those already hardened and petrified in their old customs.  The Indians assented readily to this, for already with their subjection, they felt some indescribable superiority in the Spaniards which obliged them to regard the latter with fear and respect.  Much more so did they regard the fathers, upon seeing the reverence with which the captains treated them, who always kissed their hands on seeing them.  This custom has remained even until the present in the islands.  However, they do not kiss the hand, but the habit or girdle.  I suppose that the fathers’ modesty would not permit the captains to kiss the hand, and they substituted therefor the habit or girdle.  Upon the Indians seeing this, they have followed the same custom.  Consequently, as a rule, when an Indian comes to talk to a father, he kisses the latter’s hand.  With this instruction that the fathers continued to give the youth, the Indians were becoming more harmonized, and began to lose their previous horror of the Spaniards, and on the other hand, to love them.  Most of them begged the fathers to please make them Christians.

A miracle which happened at that time aided in this.  A fire catching in some of the soldiers’ quarters on a holiday (namely, All-Saints’ day of 1566), many houses were burned, among them that in which the fathers were living.  Meanwhile another and larger house was being built.  The religious had erected a bamboo cross at the door of the said house.  The bamboos are very thick in those islands and so plentiful that they are used for masts and yards for the caracoas; and they make the best, for they are very strong, of slight weight, and can be raised and lowered easily.  Then the fire breaking out so furiously had burned more than thirty houses within an incredibly short time, and among these was ours.  The flame enveloped the cross on all sides, but did not burn it, or even smoke it.  When the religious saw the present marvel, they had the bells rung as a sign of rejoicing.  Upon the Spaniards and Indians coming to see what was the matter, they looked at it not without great wonder, for wonder was caused by the fire’s so great respect for that cross.  From that time the natives began to have a deeper idea of the mysteries preached to them by the religious, since they saw the proof of them with their own eyes.