The vagrant Indians of Manila and its environs amount to 781 tributes. The Japanese foreigners, 218 tributes. The Christian Sangleys of the village of Baybay, outside the walls of Manila, 580 tributes. In the province of Pampanga, in six villages, 3,650 tributes. In the province of Pangasinan, in four villages, 899 tributes. In the province of Ilocos, in five villages, 2,988 tributes. In the province of Cagayan, in eight villages, 2,192 tributes. Consequently, the royal crown has 44,763 tributes, as appears from an official statement made in the year 630. At ten reals per tribute, the amount reaches 53,715 pesos. Among private persons there are distributed and assigned as encomiendas 48,000 other tributes, which for the 230 citizens of Manila--without reckoning those of the cities of [Santísimo] Nombre de Jesus, [Nueva] Caceres, and [Nueva] Segovia, and the town of Arebalo, who number about 300 more--does not amount to 160 tributes per man. They amount to a like number of pesos of eight reals, for the two additional reals are for the royal crown. And even on the eight reals so many charges are made that there is left but six or a trifle more. This is the wealth, and natural and proper commerce of the Filipinas. Number 18. Fourth reason for the importance of the islands: their location, as [21] is explained The fourth reason which persuades one to value and conserve them is the one drawn from their notable location, almost opposite this hemisphere of España. Consequently, some think that Manila is the antipodes of Sevilla. Although according to the latitude of the world that is not exact--as it is in a different latitude from that required to be opposite by a straight line which passes through the center of the earth--according to the longitude the idea is not so far wrong; for although both cities are not on one great circle, their meridians lack only a difference of two or three hours to be diametrically opposite. From this it follows that, as the world has two poles upon which its frame moves and rotates, so does this monarchy also have two, one of them being España, and the other the Filipinas, which is the most remote part of España's possessions. And although in respect to the Indias, which led to the discovery of Filipinas, they are called the Western Islands, yet if sought by the voyage by way of India, they are the most eastern, and the finest that have been discovered in that ocean--whose dominion belongs to them even by nature and by their relative position among all the islands of that hemisphere. Therein they are surrounded by an infinite number of rich islands, which were formerly frequented; these promised great increase in the promulgation of the gospel, and no small hope based on the wealth of their commerce, before the rebels of Flandes entered those seas and embarrassed their navigation and trade. The islands are also at equal or proportionate distances with the kingdoms which extend from the straits of Sincapura