in marriages and dowries, divorces, adoption, and inheritance are
described; also in usury, trading, and punishment for crimes. The
standard of social purity is described by Morga as being very low;
yet infamous vices were not indigenous with them, but communicated by
foreigners, especially by the Chinese. The natives of Luzón appear
to be superior, both intellectually and morally, to the Visayan
peoples. Their religious beliefs and practices are recounted by Morga,
who naturally ascribes these to the influence of the devil. He also
narrates the entrance of Mahometanism into the islands, and how it
was checked by the coming of the Spaniards.

Morga next sketches the condition at that time of Spanish colonies
in the islands. He describes the city of Manila in detail, with
its fortifications, arsenals, government and municipal buildings,
cathedral, and convents; also the seminary of Santa Potenciana, and
the hospitals. There are six hundred houses, mostly built of stone,
within the walls, and even more in the suburbs; "and all are the
habitations and homes of Spaniards." All the people, both men and
women, are clad and gorgeously adorned in silks; and nowhere is there
greater abundance of food, and of other necessaries of human life,
than in Manila. Morga enumerates the dignitaries, ecclesiastical
and civil, who reside in the city; and mentions it as the center
and metropolis of the archipelago. He then briefly describes the
other Spanish settlements in the Philippines; and mentions in their
turn the various orders and their work there, with the number of
laborers in each. He praises their efforts for the conversion,
education, and social improvement of the Indians. He defines the
functions of both the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities,
and the policy of the government toward the natives; and describes
the application and results in the Philippines of the encomienda