This same mosque, being very large and conveniently situated, served for headquarters; his Lordship and the other captains lodged there, the other houses round about being used for the soldiers—although our being on the bank of the river, very near the woods, and somewhat distant from the fort, brought it about that every night the Moros attacked us. Because of the continual showers of rain that fall at night, they might have given us a great deal of trouble (since we cannot use firearms when it is wet), if his Lordship’s wise arrangements and planning had not provided for everything; for after having fortified the road to the hill with a very strong ravelin guarded by soldiers, etc., great fires burned every night around the camp. The sentinels continually called out the watchword; and all the sargentos-mayor and captains, and often his Lordship himself, made the rounds. The Moros, therefore, seeing us always vigilant, dared not attack us openly, but a few of the bravest tried their fortune in attacking us, and these were often at the mouth of the river, when our men were going to or from the fleet. One night, returning from visiting the sick, I was there in a small champan, with only Captain Rodrigo and four Sangleys—who, in their fear, not seeing the way ran the boat on a shoal. It certainly was a miracle of God that the Moros did not notice this; for, if they had, they would surely have killed us. I escaped at that place another great danger, for, not knowing that by day the Moros lay continually in ambuscade in some little huts quite a distance from the fort, I went each day among them; and it pleased God that they never saw me. When his Lordship learned of these ambuscades, he ordered the huts burned.
The vessels which were in the river the first day could not be taken to the fort until the next day, the tide being low. There were more than thirty of these ships—large, medium-sized, and small—the greater part of them laden with a thousand things, especially five or six very large vessels from Java, full of wax, oil, rice, and other articles of merchandise. All our people had the benefit of these things, except of a certain quantity of wax, which was kept for the king, together with a great number of arms. There were eight cannon of bronze, with ladles; twenty-seven versos, a cast-iron pedrero, a great many chambers for versos, and more than a hundred muskets and arquebuses; and an infinite quantity of bullets, iron, powder, arrows, and sompites, a kind of little arrow which they shoot by means of blowpipes[12]—so poisonous that, unless very powerful remedies are soon applied, it kills in a few hours. Other implements of warfare were found in the powder-house, which we used as barracks for the Pampangos.
The next day the rest of the champans and caracoas of our fleet began to arrive, and the governor at once appointed Captain Mena as head of the fleet for all the time while we should be at Mindanao. For governor of Fort St. Francis Xavier, he chose Sargento-mayor Palomino, who fortified it and put it in order, fencing it in on all sides, with its port-holes and defenses, and adding around it a hidden rampart with embrasures, so that it could contain two ranks of artillery and musketry. On this enterprise Don Pedro Hurtado de Corcuera worked very hard, for he is especially skilled in the Flemish mode of fortification; and the governor himself gave the plan for the building and his hands for the work, turning the first earth with the spade.
Two days more, Sunday and Monday, were spent in making many sorties and in burning many neighboring places, Captain Rodrigo with his men traveling by land, and Captain Ugalde with his, by sea, until they reached the former dwelling of Corralat, which is called Puerto de las Savanillas.[13] They burned all the houses, together with many other villages and some large ships which they found concealed in a river. The other soldiers who remained in the camp busied themselves in launching all the sunken caracoas (which were many) with which the Moros were wont to make raids; and in searching out whatever was buried. This included many chambers for versos; also iron, wax, and three bells—besides the large one which stood at the door of the mosque, mouth upward, full of water in which the Moros washed their feet before entering the mosque.
On this Sunday morning, his Lordship sent also to Samboanga a Moro caracoa full of our Christian prisoners and Sangleys, who had been coming in great numbers to the camp since the first day, especially on Saturday morning. At the same time, a boat came by way of the river with the Indian who had been our prisoner for many years, accompanied by twelve others of his household—his wife, his son, his father-in-law, etc., most of them Moros. At the stern of the boat was a large cross with a white flag suspended from it. This sight, you may be sure, drew tears of joy from us all, at seeing the spoils so valiantly snatched away from the great devil of Mindanao. I was caused some anxiety by the coming that Saturday morning of a certain Moro, who appeared, his whole body covered with mud, and came up the river in a small boat with two fowls, asking to be taken to the señor Aria (for thus they call the governor of these islands, this word meaning “king” in their language), for he wished to present the fowls to him with his own hand. Questioned as to the cause and motive for his coming, he said he was driven by hunger and necessity, because they had nothing to eat up on the hill; so would all have to come [to us] in a few days. Events showed this to be false, for a great quantity of provisions was found there later, confirming my suspicions and those of others. It must have been a trick contrived by the devil and his ministers against our captain-general, who, conducting himself on this occasion (as on others) with great prudence and diplomacy, commanded without seeing the man, that he should be handed over to Sosozan—a Moro who was friendly to us, and had come with us from Samboanga—who was to hand him over to the governor of the fort. This was done, and thus, without knowing it, we were saved from a great danger.
When matters at the fort and the port below were settled, and all the ships burned except three or four, which were kept to take back to Samboanga, Nicolas Gonçalez arrived, on Monday evening, the sixteenth, with the rest of our fleet. A great tempest had detained them after they passed La Silanga, in which one caracoa was lost, under Captain Sisneros, but only a boy was killed.
At once his Lordship arranged affairs for marching upon the hill the next day. He ordered that biscuit and cheese for four days be given to the soldiers; and Sargento-mayor Don Pedro, with Adjutant Don Francisco Olazaran, spent the whole night in making them confess—which confessions I received—not being content with their confessions at Samboanga.
At three o’clock in the morning masses began to be said, and at the end of the first his Lordship made an address to the soldiers, in which he manifested his great zeal for the honor of God and his military experience. We had agreed that afterward I was to display [the images of] the blessed Christ and St. Francis Xavier; but, to confess the truth to your Reverence, I had no heart for it; and therefore I decided not to do so—as it were, a presage of what was to happen to us that day.
When his talk was finished, his Lordship sent Sargento-mayor Nicolas Gonçalez with Father Melchor de Vera (who had come with him from Samboanga), with a hundred and twenty Spaniards, thirty Pampangos, and eighty Indians to carry the packs, to cut off the enemy’s retreat from the hill, and to descend by the same path to attack them. He assigned Captain Castelo to the advance-guard, and Captain Bererra with two famous spies (one a Moro, the other a Christian) to the rear-guard—ordering them to sound their trumpets beforehand, so that his Lordship might attack at the same time from the other direction, and thus they could surround the Moros. After Nicolas Gonçalez had gone, the governor drew up his troops, putting Captain Rodrigo at the head of the rest, and giving to each of the half-pay captains a troop of soldiers. The flags, a piece of artillery, the ammunition, and the provisions were with the body of the troops, and in the rear-guard were the Pampangos; Sargento-mayor Don Pedro was in the advance-guard, with Captain Don Rodrigo; Sargento-mayor Palomino remained in the camp with a goodly number of soldiers, and with the father rector of Othon as chaplain.
The troops were drawn up, and at six in the morning we commenced our march very gayly. After going a legua and a half, we came upon a large town at the foot of the hill, very beautiful and quiet, full of fruit groves, bananas, and sugar-cane—but deserted by the Moros on the previous night, as far as we could infer from the houses, and from the fire which was still consuming the king’s fortified house; they had fired it, doubtless, for fear that his Lordship would entrench himself in it, it being very well fitted for that. However, he ordered the adjutant, Don Martin, to fortify another house on the bank of the river with a good barrier,[14] a cannon, and a garrison of Pampangos, to guard the packs and cover the retreat of the soldiers. Then the rest of us crossed the river to reconnoiter the enemy’s position; the water was breast-high. A little later, we crossed another creek, and commenced to climb a ravine full of coarse grass. Here his Lordship halted, and, seeing another road farther down, asked the guide whether that road also led to the hill. He said “yes;” but, upon being asked which was better, replied that both were very bad. Then his Lordship (a special light from heaven illuminating him) said: “If, in the opinion of this Moro who is guiding us, both roads are bad, I prefer going by the other rather than by this one by which he is taking us.” So he commanded the advance-guard to turn back and go by the other road. Your Reverence will soon see the special providence of God, and the protection of my glorious saint. At the other road (by which the Moro was leading us) there were aimed three pieces of artillery, which could not be seen; and one of them might at least have destroyed the whole vanguard. When our chief gunner discharged the bronze cannon, which stood between two large iron ones, he found that it contained two great cannon balls, two crowbars, and three hundred musket-balls, with a double charge [of powder]. Having escaped this danger we proceeded by the other road, by which, having crossed the river and the creek for the second time, we arrived at the foot of a hill. Here we halted, and his Lordship sent some of the advance-guard ahead to inspect the road, since from what could be seen at the beginning of the ascent it seemed very bad. They went to examine it, and soon word came back that after the first turn the road was better, so we all went up. The truth is that the overflowing courage, spirit, and desire for fighting which possessed the soldiers, those of the vanguard especially, made the road seem good to them; as a matter of fact, it was narrow, rough, and very dangerous on account of terrible precipices on each side. We had made two or three turns, up the hill, thinking to find some place where we could halt, when from two stockades on the right side of the mountain the Moros commenced to fire upon us. A cannon ball came toward me, grazing me; but it was prevented by divine Providence from inflicting any further injury than leaving its mark in the shape of a hole in my cassock. May God grant that by this wonderful escape I am reserved for some other and more glorious death!