Note 86 — Chapter XXIII

All this Pampanga country is swampy. For such is the condition of the rivers, that the people have their conduits, and, when they need water let it in. This is the reason for the vast quantity of rice there. This province has abundance of cocoa-palms, and many bananas. The soil is very favorable for any trees that one might choose to plant there. When the religious arrived there, that province had many inhabitants. Now, although it lacks that great number of former years, yet it is not depopulated.86 The people there have accepted Christianity more readily than all others of the islands. They have more to do with the Spaniards than the others, and try to imitate them as far as possible. But the more they try to do that, the more do they show their texture as Indians. Very many people have been conscripted from this district, and I wonder that a man is left. For the governors send soldiers from here to Maluco, Sugbú, Octóng, and Caragán, where a fort has been built and is guarded by the men of Pampanga. And although they do more work than the Spanish soldiers, they [245] receive no pay, their food is scarce, and they are ill treated. And yet it can be said of these Indians (and a strange thing it is), that although they are treated so harshly, it is not known that a single one has deserted to the Dutch in Maluco, where they suffer more than in their own country. Many of the other Indians go and come. When these soldiers leave Pampanga, they present a fine appearance, for the villages come to their aid, each with a certain sum, for their uniforms. All this is due to the teaching of the religious of our father St. Augustine, whose flock these Indians are, and the children of their teaching.