Another miracle almost similar happened in Nueva Espana, when that great pirate Franco Draque [i.e., Francis Drake] was coasting those shores.  He was English by nation, but had been reared many years in Espana; [32] so that the proverb which says, “Rear a crow, and it will tear your eye out,” might be fulfilled.  When this man was passing through the Strait of Magallanes, and coasting the southern shores, then much neglected, many were the depredations that he committed.  He set fire to whatever he found, and burned it in his fury.  When he arrived at the coast of Colima [in Peru], there was a shipyard in one of those ports, where a frigate was being built for the pearl-fishery.  It was already completed below its cabin.  Draque ordered it fired, and such was its material that it was quickly converted into ashes.  Hut a cross which had been raised above the cabin was uninjured by the fire, as a thing against which flames have no power.  Running through the land and along the coasts, the citizens of the town of Colima came to the cabin, and among its ashes saw the cross, clean and shining.  This gave them no little consolation, and they regarded that occurrence as a miracle, namely, that the fire that had destroyed so great a structure, had reserved only the cross.  The citizens did not keep it, but cut it into splinters, and divided it among themselves.  Although one cannot but praise their zeal in this, yet it would have been better had they adorned a church with it, so that the memory of the miracle would last longer.

Chapter XII

Of several who were baptized

[The miracle of the cross and the efforts put forth by the fathers bore fruit, and the natives began to request baptism.  The first to receive the holy sacrament was a niece of Tupas, who was named Isabel.  The ceremony was celebrated with great pomp, “for among the Indians, no sense is so strong as sight.  This is so great a truth that they regard as nothing any Castilian whom they see abased and ragged.  On the contrary, when they see any Castilian who makes a show, they immediately call him ‘Captain,’ and canonize him under this name, although he does not deserve to be even a soldier.  The same is true in regard to the religious, of which I could say much because of my experience therein of more than twenty-two years.  They esteem the prior greatly, but his companion very little.  They think that the religious who lives better and has the greater number of servants, is a great chief.  They believe the contrary of him who does not live with so much ostentation.  It happened that a religious was going to visit the chapels of that district where he lived.  He, with the spirit that he brought from Castilla, intended to commence with the greatest poverty, so that he took neither bed nor refreshment.  An Indian, who was going along as cook, on considering that, said that that father was going in that way,