All those islands are defended by reefs, which makes the navigation of those seas very dangerous, even in the time of fair weather.  Within their boundaries there are a number of different kinds of animals, of rare form.  There was one the size of a cat, with the head and feet of a tiger, and the eyes, nostrils, and hands of a man, and entirely covered with soft down.  There is another little animal seen, which, as it has no teeth, because these never grow, lives on maggots.  To get them it sticks out its tongue, which is very long, where those little animals congregate; and, when the tongue is full of them, it draws it back and swallows them. [54] The forests abound with many incorruptible woods, such as ebony, cypress, cedar, and small pomegranate trees.

Those islanders had never had a gospel minister to draw them from their ignorance.  Our discalced, pitying their wretchedness, resolved to send five religious for that undertaking.  Their superior was father Fray Juan de Santo Tomas.  He, not fearing any dangers, and armed with the divine strength, planted the tree of the cross in the island of Cuyo.  That island is called “the garden of nature,” because of the singular pleasantness and beauty that it enjoys, in which it is more fortunate than the other islands of that famous sea.  It is six leguas in circuit, as are two others its near neighbors, which rival it in beauty.  It abounds in rice, and very savory fruits.  The mountains are full of fragrant flowers, and shelter a great number of wild boars.  There are many species of birds, and fowls are reared in considerable abundance.

Although those islands were densely populated, the people were so barbarous that they seemed not to possess reason.  For that cause our religious wished to cultivate that forest in order to sow the seed of the gospel.  Notwithstanding [their savagery], father Fray Francisco de San Nicolas, accompanied by another priest, named Fray Diego de Santa Ana, and a lay brother, went to the chief island of the Calamianes.  Treating the inhabitants with gentleness, they instructed and persuaded them to live gathered into villages—­a thing that they utterly abominated, both because of their natural fierceness, and because they were greatly harassed by the enemies who generally infested those islands.  Much was suffered in the attainment of that, but it was accomplished, with the most severe toil on the part of Ours; and they baptized many of those Indians, whose number we shall declare below, when we treat of the convents which were built in those islands in spite of the devil and all hell, who opposed them with all their forces.