twenty-four cattle-farms.  From very small beginnings they have multiplied so greatly that in some there are more than four thousand head, while all of them have more than a thousand.  These cattle, on account of their number, spread and wander out of bounds, and do much damage.  Finding this wrong in existence when I assumed office, I began some suits to cause the cattle-farms to be abandoned.  On one of the farms, which belonged to Captain Pedro de Brito, near the villages of Capa, Namayan, and Santana, the Audiencia on appeal decided that he must keep his cattle within bounds; and that such cattle as might be found straying might be killed by the Indians who found them in their fields.  Being a wretched race, they dare not do this, and suffer much from this and other causes.  There are some persons who charge Indians with having wronged them, and who take the Indians into service that they may work off the damage done.  So far is this custom carried that the service is converted into slavery.  There is now a great abundance of cattle outside of this district, and so many cattle-farms are not needed.  It would be well for your Majesty to command that all of them within three leguas of towns and cultivated areas should be abandoned, in order that this molestation may cease.

The province of Panpanga is twelve leguas hence.  It is the most fertile in all the islands, and the inhabitants have done more in your service than have any others.  It lies low and is bounded by some mountains which slope down to it.  The natives of the mountains are called Zambales.  They are a race that live like beasts, without settled habitations; and they are so murderous that their delight is cutting off heads.  For this purpose they come down upon this province, and, as its inhabitants are a race entirely devoted to agriculture, they take them unawares, and have wrought and do work great outrages upon them.  The effort was made to put a garrison in their country, and some Spanish troops were stationed there.  Since the country is rough and mountainous, it is impossible to march in it; and as there is no certain day on which the attacks of the mountaineers can be anticipated, it is impossible to prevent them.  The Panpangans have often asked for permission to destroy these others, by killing or enslaving them; but no decision has been given them in all the years during which the matter has been discussed.  The remedy for the evil is easy, for if they be given for a time as slaves to any man who can capture them, this will encourage the making of inroads upon them.  This has not been done, because of your Majesty’s commands not to enslave any of the inhabitants of this archipelago and island.  This would he a temporary slavery, and by it much or all of this evil described would be corrected; and the expense which it causes would be prevented.  The same thing happens in the mountains of Yllocos and in other regions, for every day the mountaineers attack and murder members of the tribes at peace—­who, as they have no permission to kill them and no hope of making use of them, permit them to return and harass them.