miles from the sea, in the province of Fokien, the rocky coast of which
has been described as resembling Scotland, and its sturdy inhabitants
seem to have borne some resemblance to the Scotch in their love of
liberty. The district now is better known by its present port of Amoy.

Altogether, in wealth, culture and comfort, Lam-co's home city far
surpassed the Manila of that day, which was, however, patterned after
it. The walls of Manila, its paved streets, stone bridges, and large
houses with spacious courts are admitted by Spanish writers to be due
to the industry and skill of Chinese workmen. They were but slightly
changed from their Chinese models, differing mainly in ornamentation,
so that to a Chinese the city by the Pasig, to which he gave the name
of "the city of horses," did not seem strange, but reminded him rather
of his own country.

Famine in his native district, or the plague which followed it,
may have been the cause of Lam-co's leaving home, but it was more
probably political troubles which transferred to the Philippines
that intelligent and industrious stock whose descendants have proved
such loyal and creditable sons of their adopted country. Chinese had
come to the Islands centuries before the Spaniards arrived and they
are still coming, but no other period has brought such a remarkable
contribution to the strong race which the mixture of many peoples
has built up in the Philippines. Few are the Filipinos notable in
recent history who cannot trace descent from a Chinese baptized in
San Gabriel church during the century following 1642; until recently
many have felt ashamed of these really creditable ancestors.

Soon after Lam-co came to Manila he made the acquaintance of two
well-known Dominicans and thus made friendships that changed his career
and materially affected the fortunes of his descendants. These powerful
friends were the learned Friar Francisco Marquez, author of a Chinese
grammar, and Friar Juan Caballero, a former missionary in China,
who, because of his own work and because his brother held high office
there, was influential in the business affairs of the Order. Through
them Lam-co settled in Binan, on the Dominican estate named after
"St. Isidore the Laborer." There, near where the Pasig river flows
out of the Laguna de Bay, Lam-co's descendants were to be tenants
until another government, not yet born, and a system unknown in his
day, should end a long series of inevitable and vexatious disputes by
buying the estate and selling it again, on terms practicable for them,
to those who worked the land.

The Filipinos were at law over boundaries and were claiming the
property that had been early and cheaply acquired by the Order as
endowment for its university and other charities. The Friars of
the Parian quarter thought to take those of their parishioners in
whom they had most confidence out of harm's way, and by the same act
secure more satisfactory tenants, for prejudice was then threatening
another indiscriminate massacre. So they settled many industrious
Chinese converts upon these farms, and flattered themselves that
their tenant troubles were ended, for these foreigners could have no
possible claim to the land. The Chinese were equally pleased to have
safer homes and an occupation which in China placed them in a social
position superior to that of a tradesman.

Domingo Lam-co was influential in building up Tubigan barrio, one
of the richest parts of the great estate. In name and appearance
it recalled the fertile plains that surrounded his native Chinchew,
"the city of springs." His neighbors were mainly Chinchew men, and
what is of more importance to this narrative, the wife whom he married
just before removing to the farm was of a good Chinchew family. She
was Inez de la Rosa and but half Domingo's age; they were married
in the Parian church by the same priest who over thirty years before
had baptized her husband.

Her father was Agustin Chinco, also of Chinchew, a rice merchant,
who had been baptized five years earlier than Lam-co. His baptismal
record suggests that he was an educated man, as already indicated,
for the name of his town proved a puzzle till a present-day Dominican
missionary from Amoy explained that it appeared to be the combined
names for Chinchew in both the common and literary Chinese, in each
case with the syllable denoting the town left off. Apparently when
questioned from what town he came, Chinco was careful not to repeat
the word town, but gave its name only in the literary language,
and when that was not understood, he would repeat it in the local
dialect. The priest, not understanding the significance of either in
that form, wrote down the two together as a single word. Knowledge
of the literary Chinese, or Mandarin, as it is generally called,
marked the educated man, and, as we have already pointed out,
education in China meant social position. To such minute deductions
is it necessary to resort when records are scarce, and to be of value
the explanation must be in harmony with the conditions of the period;
subsequent research has verified the foregoing conclusions.

Agustin Chinco had also a Chinese godfather and his parents were
Chin-co and Zun-nio. He was married to Jacinta Rafaela, a Chinese
mestiza of the Parian, as soon after his baptism as the banns could
be published. She apparently was the daughter of a Christian Chinese
and a Chinese mestiza; there were too many of the name Jacinta in that
day to identify which of the several Jacintas she was and so enable us
to determine the names of her parents. The Rafaela part of her name
was probably added after she was grown up, in honor of the patron of
the Parian settlement, San Rafael, just as Domingo, at his marriage,
added Antonio in honor of the Chinese. How difficult guides names
then were may be seen from this list of the six children of Agustin
Chinco and Jacinta Rafaela: Magdalena Vergara, Josepha, Cristoval de
la Trinidad, Juan Batista, Francisco Hong-Sun and Inez de la Rosa.

The father-in-law and the son-in-law, Agustin and Domingo, seem to