Item:  There are two other nations in the island of Manila called Zambales and Negrillos.  They are a people who live in the mountains.  They go naked, and are highwaymen; and their only ambition is to cut off heads, in order to swallow the brains.  He is most valiant and influential who has cut off most heads.  No woman will marry any one who has not cut off some heads.  They are so inhuman and churlish a race that they do not care whether those whom they kill are women, children, or men.  They obstruct the most needed road in the island, and occupy the best land.  They are near the province of La Pampanga, which is inhabited by an agricultural people, who support Manila.  They prevent the latter from cultivating their fields, for seldom can the Indians, whether men or women, go out to cultivate their fields, without their heads being cut off.  Although the governors have often sent soldiers to punish them, scarcely have the latter ever killed one of them.  For they run like deer, and have no village or fixed abode.  They do not sow grain, but live on wild fruits and game.  The most efficacious remedy will be for your Highness to order that they be made slaves of the natives of the province of La Pampanga; for with this, through their greed to capture these enemies so as to cultivate their fields, the Pampangos will subdue the country in a very short time, at their own cost.  I petition your Highness to commit this matter, as above stated, to the Audiencia, archbishop, and bishops.  This is a matter of great importance.  Slavery, as practiced among the natives, is such that they are almost not slaves at all; and the system is of great benefit to the country.  If this matter be not remedied by the above method, the many depredations that are committed will have no check.

Also, the reason why the enemies have become emboldened beyond their wont is for the lack in those regions of ships fit for that warfare.  For that, it must be known that those people use certain light craft called caracoas.  Those craft are short and undecked.  They have one palmo, more or less, of freeboard; and they carry eighty or one hundred Indians who act as rowers, who use certain oars one vara in length.  Each of these vessels carries ten or twelve fighting Indians, no more.  They cannot take the open sea, except when it is very calm weather, nor do they carry provisions for even one fortnight.  When we Spaniards used those craft, and others called vireys, which resemble them, they greatly feared us; for, since those craft were as light as their own, we made great havoc among those people.  And finally—­although at great cost to the natives who were drafted as rowers—­those ships made the country safe; for they fought after the manner of those people.  Those vessels are not used so much now, for in truth they cause great injuries to the natives.  I do not know whether I can say that they even care any longer for the damage inflicted by the enemies, one reason being that they