The area and population of these three, according to the census tables of 1903, are as follows: Province Area (sq. m.) [282] Population [283] Cagayan 5,052 156,239 Isabela 5,018 76,431 Nueva Vizcaya 1,950 62,541 ------ ------- Total 12,020 295,211 The troops of Captain Batchelor's command were later on relieved by the 16th Infantry, commanded by Colonel Hood, under whom the above group of three provinces finally became the "Second District of the Department of Northern Luzon." As part of the plan to provide the reader with a fair general idea of Luzon conveniently portable in memory, he is requested to note, at this point, that hereinafter the Cagayan valley, with its three provinces, [284] will be alluded to as a district containing 12,000 square miles and 300,000 people. As was remarked concerning the original military district commanded by General Young, to wit, the First District, so of Colonel Hood's district, the Second--that is to say, as the Ilocano country may some day become the state of Ilocos, so, for like geographical and other governmental reasons, the three provinces of the Cagayan valley may some day become the state of Cagayan in the possible Philippine republic of the future. Having now followed the "far-flung battle line" of the volunteers of '99 and their comrades in arms, the regulars, from Manila northward across the rice paddies of central Luzon and over the mountains to the northern extremity of the island, let us return to the central plain, for reasons which will be stated in so doing. Between the China Sea and the coast range which forms the western boundary of the central plain of Luzon, there is a long strip of territory--a west wing of the plain, as it were--about 125 miles long, with an average width of not more than twenty miles, stretching from Manila Bay to Lingayen Gulf. This is divided, for governmental purposes into two provinces, Bataan on the south, whose southern extremity lay on Admiral Dewey's port side as he entered Manila Bay the night before the naval battle of May 1, 1898, and Zambales on the north. The area and population of this territory are as follows: Province Area (sq. m.) Population Bataan 537 46,787 Zambales 2,125 104,549 ----- ------- 2,662 151,336