Extreme Ignorance of the Manila 3Ion/cs. 305 



the monks, whose geographical knowledge did not seem to 

 extend much beyond the sphere of tlieir vision. At fu-st 

 they confounded Austria with Australia, and fancied we 

 must have come direct from the fifth quarter of the globe, 

 but when the Novara voyagers, proud of their Fatherland, 

 refused to permit this opinion to pass current, and gave a 

 more clear explanation, one of the younger monks thought 

 he had at last found out our habitat, and evidently priding 

 himself on having solved the riddle, gave his less ingenious 

 brethren to understand that we came, not fi'om Australia, but 

 from Asturias, and were consequently fellow-countrymen ! 

 The limited intelligence of the Franciscan mistook Austria for 

 Asturias, and made of the Austrian Empire a Spanish pro- 

 vince ! Lest the hypothesis should suggest itself to the reader, 

 that this confusion of foreign empires with domestic pro- 

 vinces might possibly have originated in om* not being ac- 

 quainted with the language of the country, it is necessary 

 that we should inform him that one member of the Expedi- 

 tion was thoroughly versed in Spanish, so as to be able to 

 maintain fluent conversation, and that he was perfectly 

 comprehended upon all other topics. Just as little must it 

 be supposed that the above anecdote is but an ill-natured 

 imputation, or the expression of a long-vanished national 

 jealousy, or anything else than a proof of the present state 

 of education among the present occupants of the monasteries 

 of Manila. 



VOL. II. X 



