They had chiefs, who held their situations, either on account of personal valour, or by succession to their fathers, where they had abilities to retain it. Their dominion extended over one or two villages, or more, according to the means they possessed, of extending protection. They were continually at war with the neighbouring villages, and continually making each other slaves. Out of these wars, arose three classes of people; the chiefs or masters of the villages, the slaves, and those whom the chiefs had enfranchised, with their descendants, and who, to this day, are called Timavas, properly signifying children of liberty. In some places, were found Indians whiter than others, descended, without doubt, from Chinese or Japanese, who had been shipwrecked on these coasts, and whom the Indians, naturally hospitable, received, and allowed to intermarry with them; and it is generally believed that the Ygorrotes of Ylocos, whose eyes resemble the Chinese, must have originated from the companions of Limahon, who fled to those mountains, when Juan de Salcedo compelled him to his disgraceful retreat, from the province of Pangasinan. It is not, however, after all, easy to ascertain the origin of these people, but their idiom throws some degree of light on the subject. Although the languages these Indians speak, are many and different, they have so much intercourse one with another, that it may clearly be discovered, they are dialects of the same language, as the Spanish, French, and Italian, are derivatives from the Latin. The prepositions and pronouns, are nearly the same in all of them; the numeral characters, differ very little, and they have many words in common, and of one and the same structure.