While roving over the waters that covered the earth the sun god saw the nymph Ursula sporting in the waves, and was smitten with a quick and mighty fondness. He nearly consumed himself in the ardor of his affection. She, however, was as cold and pure as the sea. As she swung drowsily on the billows she was like a picture painted in foam on their blue-green depth, and in breathing her bosom rose and fell like the waves themselves. As she saw the god descending she was filled with alarm, but as he took her into his strong embrace and placed his cheek to hers a new life and warmth came to her, and in their marriage the spirits of the air and water rejoiced. A son was born to them,—so beautiful a boy that the sun god made a land for him, stocked it with living creatures, adorned it with greenery and flowers, and gave it to the human race as an inheritance of joy forever. This land he called Cebu, and no land was more lovely. Lupa was the child, and from him came all the kings of Cebu, among them Amambar, the first chief of the island of whom we have definite record. In the day of his rule the group had long been peopled, and the use of tools and weapons had become known. One occasionally finds to-day the stone arrows and axes they called “lightning teeth,” and with which they worked such harm to one another in their many wars.

It was an evening of March, 1521, a calm and pleasant evening, with the perfume of flowers mixed with the tonic tang of the ocean, birds flying and monkeys chattering in the wood, and a gentle surf whispering upon the beach. Amambar was walking on the shore alone. He had gone there to watch the gambols of the mermaids, when a great light whitened against the sunset. It came from a cross that had been planted just out of reach of the sea. He put his hands before his eyes that it might not dazzle him. Then, as the moon arose, he peered beneath his hands, out over the restless water, and there, against the golden globe that was lifting over the edge of the world, could be seen a flock of monster birds with gray wings, and dark men walking on their backs as they lightly rode the billows, the men sparkling and glinting as they moved, for they were arrayed in metal and bore long knives and lances that flashed like stars. Other of the company wore black robes and sang in unknown words, their voices mixing in a music never heard by Amambar before. A sparkling white cloud drooped slowly from the sky. A diamond vapor played about the cross. Out of the cloud came a melodious voice saying, “Look up, O chief!” And looking at the cross again, he saw, extended there, a bleeding figure with a compassionate face that gazed down upon him and declared, “I am Jesus Christ, son of the only God. Those whom you see in the ships are my people, who have come to these islands to rule you for your good.” Amambar fell prone on the sand and prayed for a long time, not daring to open his eyes. When he regained courage and arose the cloud was gone; the ships had sailed away. He was alone.

The commander of the ships was Magellan. It was one of his monks who had placed the cross on shore. Landing in Cebu later, he converted two thousand of the natives in a day by destroying the statue of Vishnu and putting that of the child Jesus in its place, though he still yielded to savage opinion in so far as he consented to confirm his friendship with the king by a heathen ceremony, each opening a vein in his arm and drinking the blood of the other. As usual, the appearance and ways of the Europeans smote the natives with wonder. They described the strangers as enormous men with long noses, who dressed in fine robes, ate stones (ship-bread), drank fire from sticks (pipes), and breathed out the smoke, commanded thunder and lightning from metal tubes, and were gods. Engaging in a wrangle between two tribes, Magellan was lured into a marsh at Mactan, and there, while watching a battle to see how great the Filipinos could be in war, he was slain with bamboo lances sharpened and hardened in fire. Amambar’s Christianity did not endure, for he so wearied of the oppression and rapacity of the strangers that when a successor to Magellan appeared he invited him to a banquet and slew him at his meat. But the cross and the statue of Christ worked miracles among the faithful for many generations.