water enters at the proper season when the rice stalks are hardening and are beginning to ear; consequently the copious irrigation helps it to form seed without hindering the grain from hardening, or the harvest from being gathered.  On the contrary it is a convenience, as I myself have often seen, to go in boats for the reaping, and in those boats to bring the bundles of grain to the houses, where they are exposed to the sun to dry.  When it is thoroughly dry they thresh and clean it, and store it in their granaries.  This inundation not only flooded the village—­to such an extent that the streets could be traversed only in boats, in which I went often enough—­but also, although the floor of the church had been raised and repairs made to guard against the water, it flowed in over the steps, even to the main altar.  On account of this inundation they had selected, not far from the church and farther back from the water, a hill, where those who died during this season were interred.  For mass they repaired to Antipolo, which lies a scant three miles inland among the mountains.  The first time when I saw my church flooded, and realized that I could not say mass in it, I was obliged to believe what I had never been able to credit, although I had been often told of it.  It is customary for these villages, for greater convenience of government, to be divided into districts on the plan of parishes, which they call barangais.  Each one of these is under the command of a chief, who governs it and appoints those who are to provide for all contingencies; the latter are called datos.  At that time this village had four hundred families and was divided into four barangais; consequently there were four datos, each one of whom had charge of a hundred inhabitants who are called collectively catongohan.  I summoned my four datos and from the choir I showed them the altar; they saw (and they had known it beforehand) that mass could not be celebrated.  “Without celebrating mass each day,” I said to them, “although I may be unworthy of it, I cannot live, for that is my sustenance which gives me strength to serve you for Christ’s sake.  Now I must go where I can say it—­that is, to Antipolo.  If you wish to see me again, you will build for me, on the hill where the dead are now buried, a little church in which I can say mass, with some little room to which I can retire; until this be done, I remain with God;” and I went away.  Desiring my return, they soon began the work and finished it in such wise that I could stay and celebrate mass, and, too, serve as an attraction to any one who might pass that way.  At first they did very little, and that slowly; but as it was necessary to dismantle the church and carry to the hill its materials, and with these the cross belonging to the cemetery, they soon began to show such haste in migrating to the new village that ten or twelve of them crowded into one house, until each one could build his own.  Surprised at such haste, I inquired its cause, and