The fleet which went from the province of Oton to punish Jolo has arrived at this very moment.  I shall relate here a very fortunate result that our Lord gave them.  It is as follows.  The island of Jolo is next to that of Mindanao.  The fleet left here, as I said, on the first of April.  At dawn of Holy Saturday it reached the mouth of the river of Jolo, and entering it and attacking the village, the enemy fled as a single man to the mountain, so that the energy of all our men was directed to pillaging.  The sack amounted to thirty thousand pesos.  What was pillaged from the house of the king amounted to six thousand pesos in silk, cloth, wax, huge quantities of wax, innumerable weapons, and other things of great value.  It was all divided among the villagers.  That news was one of the best which this country has heard, as that enemy was the one who does us most harm.  Father Fabricio Sersali, who was with the fleet, preceded them all with an image of St. Francis Xavier raised on a spear.  In this manner did the aged saint enter the mosque, and leap for joy.  Now boats are being prepared in this town of Arebalo to complete the uprooting from these islands of those nations who disturb them.  They burned the town, and the house of the king, the mosque, and the rice which they could not carry away.  They felled the palm trees, so that they might deprive those people of support.  They did all that in one day.  They burned one hundred and forty ships—­forty large ones and the others of less burden.  Such and such people were captured; and then they set out on their return in high spirits, in order to go out another time, for which they are preparing.  Oton, May 30, 628.

Hernando Estrada [58]

Will your Reverence aid me with your holy sacrifices and prayers, so that I may imitate many apostolic laborers whom we have had here, and of whom we have at present many, who have come from all those provinces of Espana; they have made and are making gardens pleasant to the sight of God, from the obscure forests which the devil has possessed so many thousands of years and still possesses in these islands.  For, as we have been told, there are eleven thousand islands, of which that of Manila is the largest and most important.  It has more Christians [than the others], and yet even in it there are many infidels, who make war on us.  Among the other islands there are very few [with Christians] because of the many which are so full of infidel people who profess the devilish worship of Mahoma.  I cannot depict to your Reverence how surrounded we are by that canaille on all sides, and the wars that they so frequently make upon us—­so that, in the summer especially, no one can be safe in his house.  Daily do they enter our villages, burn them and their churches, break into bits the saints and images, and capture the poor Indians.