diced b Jos e S. Arc a, - non

for twenty years in these lands of buyo and boiled rice, disguising body andsoul, and I do not want to begin the final journey without putting on paperthings no one has heard or said." Significantly at the end, the friar denouncesand accuses both himself and his brothers in the cloth:What are we? A battalion of loafers without any spark of discipline. The currencywith which we inculcated virtues on the native conscience is fake and quiteworthless . . I who am in on the secret tell you this. (page 82)Each convent is a closed arena, each friar a first class sinner. Ask the mestizoswho frequent these blessed lands. (page 83)Reading these lines, the reader can hardly avoid feeling that they wereaimed, as chapter 63 of Rizal's Noli, at the same target, namely, the friars'self-accusation. It is not a question of fiction, not even of calumny, because itis the friars themselves who acknowledge their excesses and atrocities.7. "Paco"--philosophico-religious thoughts on death, one of the fewtimes Caflamaque leaves irony and sarcasm aside, and adopts a somewhatexistentialist tone. Chapters 13 and 53 ofNoli are two episodes on death, butin a far different style from Caflamaque's chapters 13 and 52.11. "The Native Carabineer. The Smugglers"—The sign C. de H. P.(Carabinero de Hacienda Publica) is translated by the disgruntled intoCalamidad de Holgazanes Publicos (Plague of Public Loafers). Tasio inChapter 32 makes a similar play on words: M. R. P. (Muy Reverendo Padre)becomes Muy Rico Propietario (Very Rich Proprietor). The way of life andthe conduct of the Carabineers and the Civil Guard are frequently treated byRizal, especially in chapters 39 and 49.12. "The Manileflos"—they frequently mistake "f' for "p" and write"Peeleefeen" Islands for "Philippine" Islands, a defect Rizal also attributes tothe Muse of the Civil Guard in chapter 40 of the Noli.14. "The Mestizas"—like many Spaniards of his time, Caflamaqueflaunts his impudent disdain for everything Filipino, past and present, exceptthe mestiza to whom he dedicates extraordinary praise, perhaps excessive.Maria Clara, significantly, is also a mestiza.At the end of his work, Caflamaque includes in the form of an appendix aletter supposedly from a reader, whose name he does not reveal, and titled"The Friars in the Philippines." As mentioned, this part of the book is theserious and more important of the second series of his memoires. Here all the96