Although I do not know what new things there may be there, I leave it all to your good opinion and intelligence and that of Senor Canon Garcetas, as I know, since you are such friends of mine, that you will give the most fitting counsel.  May our Lord protect you for the greatest possible number of years.  I kiss your hands.  Tidore, July 5, 1617.  Your humble servant,

Lucas Vergara Gaviria

Part Third.  Wherein is Given Information of Other Matters Concerning the Filipinas, the Islands of Maluco, and Others of the Archipelago; of Their Riches, and of the Forts and Factories Which the Dutch Hold; and of the Wealth Which is At Present Secured from Them.

Chapter I. Of the prelates and their districts in the islands, and of certain curious things.

The island called Lucon, which is the most important, has two bishops and an archbishop.  The archbishopric has jurisdiction in the vicinity of the city of Manila, the capital of that country.  Toward the east it reaches as far as the village called Calilaya, forty leguas from the city on the same island.  It has four offices of alcalde-mayor, which is the same thing as a corregimiento—­namely those of La Laguna de Vai, La Laguna de Bonvon, another in Valayan, and that of Calilaya.  In this there are many Indian villages administered by religious of the Augustinian order, and still more by the discalced of St. Francis.  Toward the west of the jurisdiction is that of the province of Pampanga, which is fertile and well-peopled, and that of Bulacan, and the Cambales.  These are not Christians and cannot be reduced to conversion, but are negroes who go about like wild beasts through the inaccessible parts of the mountains.  They are given to cutting the heads from other Indians, and no woman will marry a Cambal unless he has cut off a head; accordingly, in order to be married, he will cut one off, even though it be that of his own father when he finds the latter in the fields.  If these had been given into slavery they would have been already reduced; but, although I have advised it many times in the Council, no measures for this have ever been taken.  As the matter stands, they will never be pacified except by this means.  The reason for this is that, if they were given into slavery, the Indians of Pampanga, with their great desire to hold slaves for the managing of their crops, would have reduced them.  They do a great deal of damage, so much that no Indian dares go out alone to work in his field, because they kill him merely for the sake of cutting off his head.  They live upon roots and fruit from the woods, and have no houses, nor possessions, and go about naked.  Toward the east this jurisdiction takes in all the island, and toward the west lies the sea.  Several islands are joined to this jurisdiction, as are those of Lioban and Mindoro.  In these are a number of trees resembling cinnamon [canela], which I have shown to our physicians, who say that it is the Cinamomo. [51] Then there is the island of Marenduque, where there are mines of copper; and other islands, of little importance and sparsely peopled.