[44] Juan Arjona came from the convent at Córdoba, in the mission of 1628, and was assigned to the Pangasinan field. In 1637–38 he was ministering in Ituy, and in 1639 was appointed to a station in Formosa. Afterward he returned to Pangasinan, and, after filling various offices in Manila, died there on September 4, 1666, at the age of eighty-four.
[45] There are more than a hundred different varieties of rice, some of which are lowland, cultivated by irrigation, and some upland, grown in the dry lands (these being more numerous than the former). See U. S. Philippine Commission’s Report, 1900, iii, pp. 244, 245.
[46] The province of Nueva Vizcaya (Ituy) is drained by the great river Magat and its tributaries, which fertilize its soil; this stream flows into the Rio Grande de Cagayán, which Aduarte seems to regard as the continuation of the Magat.
[47] Jerónimo de Zamora came to the islands in 1615, and labored thirty-eight years in the Cagayán missions; at times he occupied various offices, among them that of commissary of the Inquisition. He died at Lal-ló about 1655.
[48] i.e., “Equal shall be the portion of him that went down to battle and of him that abode at the baggage, and they shall divide alike;” in I Kings (of the Douay version; I Samuel of the Protestant versions), xxx, v. 24.
[49] Hidetada died in 1632, hut he had, following the usual custom, abdicated the shôgunate in 1623, in favor of his son Iyemitsu—retaining, however, as Iyeyasu had done, the actual control of the empire until his death.
[50] i.e., “That which decayeth and groweth old is near its end” (Hebrews, viii, 13).
[51] i.e., “The old man carried the child, but the child directed the old man.”
[52] The torment of the pit (French, fosse, Spanish, hoyo); a hole six feet deep and three in diameter was dug, and a post with a projecting arm was planted by its side. To this arm the victim was suspended, being lowered head downward into the pit, and left thus until he either died or recanted; his body had been previously tightly corded, to impede the circulation of the blood, but one hand was left free, to make the sign of recantation. This horrible torment did not bring death until two, three, or even six days; but most of the religious endured it unto death, rather than recant. Of the few who did so was Christoval Ferreira (Vol. XXIV, note 91). See Murdoch and Yamagata’s Hist. Japan, pp. 632–633.
[53] Jacobo Somonaga (in religion, de Santa Maria) was born in Omura of Christian parents; he had ability as a speaker, and often preached while a student. He came to Manila, and at first became an Augustinian; afterward, he entered the Dominican order (August 15, 1624), being then forty-three years of age. In 1627 he was in Formosa; in 1632 he went from Manila to Japan, and in the following year died as a martyr. (See Reseña biográfica, i, pp. 256, 257.)