one of their religious to learn the language and take charge of the Sangleys.  Although all of them showed a desire to do so, and some even began to learn it, yet no one succeeded; and the Sangleys found themselves with no one to instruct them and take up their conversion with the necessary earnestness, until, in the year eighty-seven, God brought to these islands the religious of St. Dominic.  Their coming was for the welfare of the Sangleys, as the result proved, and as I shall relate further on.  God soon showed us that the religious had come by His will, to take charge of the Sangleys.  This city, being built on a narrow site with the sea on one side and a river on the other, was all occupied, and there seemed to be no place where the Dominicans could settle; but there was soon discovered a site of which no one had thought until then, and which now is the best in the city.  The site adjoins the Parian of the Sangleys, and that gave the religious of that order occasion to begin to hold intercourse with them, and for the religious and Sangleys to become mutually attached to one another.  For, whenever the Sangleys come and go from the Parian, they pass by the church of Sancto Domingo, and, being a very inquisitive people, they often stop and watch what is taking place there.  When the confraternities of the Rosary and of the Oaths, which are founded in that house, hold their processions, a great many Sangleys come out to watch them.  They live so near the monastery that in the night they hear the religious sing matins, and are not a little edified by it; for they also have their own form of religion, and there are among them religious men who lead a very austere life and claim to live in profound meditation.  When it shall please God to enlighten them, Christianity will undoubtedly profit much by this characteristic.

I said above that the monastery of Sancto Domingo stands close by the Parian of the Sangleys, which is built in a marshy place on the border of this city between its northern and southern sides.  The Sangleys were transferred thither by Diego Ronquillo, during his governorship, because the Parian which Don Gonzalo Ronquillo had built was destroyed by fire.  At first it seemed absurd to think that human habitations were to be built in that marsh, but the Sangleys, who are very industrious, and a most ingenious people, managed it so well that, in a place seemingly uninhabitable, they have built a Parian resembling the other, although much larger and higher.  According to them it suits them better than the other, because on the firm ground where the four rows of buildings are located they have built their houses and the streets leading through the Parian, a separate street for each row of buildings.