[4] The Tagálog word for “bridge.” [↑]
[5] Spanish, sermones de tabla. The tabla is the list kept in the church sacristy which designates on what days certain functions are to be held; it is the tabella of the Italian sacristies, the church calendar of ours. Cathedrals and even lower grade churches (as collegiates, nunneries, hospitals, etc.) had their sermons (d’occasion, as the French say) on certain set days as marked in their local calendars, or tablas; these were always very grand, and delivered by renowned preachers and orators; many of these I have heard.
The phrase “endowed feast” (fiesta dotada) is used also in Italian and French. It was a custom, which I presume still holds, in all those countries (as I often saw in Italy), that a municipality, society, confraternity, or indeed any body of persons, had its feasts on set days in the year—for instance, feasts of their patron saints, or of thanksgiving, etc. Fairs also were endowed; that is, bequests (perhaps centuries old) provided that on set days the people were to have a fiesta, with music, fireworks, games, sermons, etc., with an alms for the poor—all paid for, as also would be the premiums for the fairs. These were occurrences always of great festivity and merriment; and in Italy, at least in the part where I lived, the smallest towns and hamlets had their fiestas dotadas.—Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A. [↑]
[6] The Exercitia spiritualia of Inigo de Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order; it has long been a text-book therein, and a manual of devotion for persons under direction of the Jesuits. See account of the examination of conscience prescribed in it, in Jesuit Relations (Cleveland reissue), lxviii, p. 326.
“In Europe it is customary for persons at particular seasons to retire for a time from the world, to give themselves up entirely to prayer and meditation. Some part of the season of Lent is generally selected for this purpose; and many, for the sake of more entire seclusion, take up their residence during this time in some religious house. This is called ‘going into retreat.’”—Kip’s Jesuits in America, p. 302. [↑]
[7] That is, “headland of Bondoc” (or Bondog); a mountain 1,250 feet high, at the southern end of the peninsula of Tayabas, Luzón. (U. S. Gazetteer of Philippines, p. 397.) [↑]
[8] Marinduque is an island off the coast of Tayabas province, Luzón; it is round in shape, about twenty-three miles in diameter, and has a population (Tagálog) of about 48,000. It has some good harbors; and it produces abundance of rice, cocoanuts, and abacá. (U. S. Gazetteer of Philippines, pp. 643–647.) [↑]
[9] Theriacs were held in great estimation during the middle ages. They were composed of opium flavored with nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon, and mace—or merely with saffron and ambergris. [↑]
[10] Aornis (or Aornos), a lofty rock in India, taken by Alexander the Great; thus named, as being so high as to be inaccessible even to birds. [↑]
[11] That is, as alternate or substitute for Encinas, in case of the latter’s disability or death. [↑]