The famous Magallanes discovered it in the year 1521.  It has a circumference of less than one hundred leguas.  Its inhabitants are called Pintados, because they have various designs on their bodies, which they make with iron and fire.  They were formerly regarded as lords and chiefs of the other neighboring provinces, for they made themselves feared by their great valor.  Adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legaspi gained it by force of arms from its king Tupas in the year 1575 [sic], and founded there the city of Nombre de Jesus, because an image of the most holy child Jesus, one-half vara tall, was found there in the house of an Indian.  The Observantine fathers possess that image in a convent that was built in the same house and on the same site; it had before been owned and venerated by the heathen, and is today frequented by the Catholics, who find there relief for their needs.  The city lies in the eastern part, and has a good port, while there are other ports found in the island.  There, then, did the most pious bishop, Don Fray Pedro de Arce (of the order of our father St. Augustine, and a son of the most observant province of Castilla, and of the convent of Salamanca—­where he professed in the year one thousand five hundred and seventy-nine, while father Fray Antonio Munoz was prior), solicit our discalced to found a convent; for, although they had been the last in arriving at Filipinas, he hoped that they were not to be the last in the work of the vineyard of the Lord.

The bishop assigned the site in a chapel dedicated to the conception of our Lady, somewhat apart from the traffic of the city, so that, accordingly, the religious could give themselves more quietly to prayer.  He adjudged them also the spiritual administration of an islet and small village called Maripipi, not very far from Zibu.  About six hundred souls were instructed there by Ours with great care and vigilance.  The erection of that convent was accomplished by father Fray Chrisostomo de la Ascension, who was its first prior.  He erected a small building, that afterward was rebuilt because of an accidental fire, and extended so that now it is a very comfortable dwelling, well suited to purposes of devotion.  That convent has a devout confraternity of Our Lady of Solitude [Nuestra Senora de la Soledad.] On Holy Thursday, a solemn procession is made after the ceremony of the descent of Christ from the tree of the cross.  That procession, passing through the streets of the city, is a great edification and consolation to the faithful.

Sec.  XIII

Foundation of the convent of San Sebastian outside of the walls of Manila in Filipinas