THE PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION


Let us first examine the book as it appears before us. The title-page
reads:


Doctrina Christiana, en
lengua española ytagala, cor
regida por los Religiosos de las
ordenes Impressa con licencia, en
S. gabriel. de la orden de. S. Domigo
En Manila. 1593


The book, printed in Gothic letters and Tagalog [1] characters on
paper made from the paper mulberry, now browned and brittle with age,
consists of thirty-eight leaves, comprising a title-page as above,
under a woodcut [2] of St. Dominic, with the verso originally blank,
but in this copy bearing the contemporary manuscript inscription,
_Tassada en dos rreales_, signed _Juan de Cuellar_; and seventy-four
pages of text in Spanish, Tagalog transliterated into roman letters,
and Tagalog in Tagalog characters. The size of the volume, which
is unbound, is 9 1/8 by 7 inches, although individual leaves vary
somewhat due to chipping. Some of the leaves have become separated
from their complements, but enough remain in the original stitching
to indicate that the book was originally made up in four gatherings,
the first of twelve leaves, the second of ten, the third of ten, and