enacted in the said provincial chapter for all the father vicars of the houses near the mountains where there were any heathens to reduce, to endeavor to make entrances among them in order to allure them to the faith of Christ, did in that part what was ordered, by making some entrances among those mountains in order to reduce some Negritos, who are called Zambals. [6] Although the father worked with energy in that attempt, and went to great expense in kindnesses to them, he could obtain nothing from them because of their great barbarity and other reasons which it is not the present purpose to mention. In the year 1678, Master-of-camp Don Juan de Vargas y Hurtado, knight of the Order of Santiago, came to govern these islands. With the coming of the new governor, the Zambals of Buquil renewed their former petition that Dominican fathers be given them. In order to make surer of their demands, they presented themselves to the archbishop, saying that they would quickly be reduced and would embrace the faith of Jesus Christ, if ministers of our order were given them. The archbishop, having seen that proposal, informed the governor of it, to whom as vice-patron belonged the right of assigning one or another sort of ministers to those Indians. The governor brought with him a royal decree from his Majesty ordering him to entrust to one of the orders the administration of the island of Mindoro, which was in charge of secular priests. Upon seeing the representation of the Zambals, he offered the administration of the said island of Mindoro to the Augustinian Recollect fathers, on condition that they leave the province of Zambales, in order that our religious might assume its administration in accordance with the petition of the Indians of that province. The father provincial of the Recollects accepted the exchange, although they assert that the cession was not legal, as it was not made by the provincial chapter of their province. That annulling clause was not put forward then, and the cession made by the father provincial of the administration of Zambales before the said governor having been seen, the Recollects were given that of the island of Mindoro. By virtue of that, the said governor in his Majesty's name, conceded to the Order of St. Dominic the administration of the province of Zambales from the village of Marivelez to that of Bolinao. The father provincial of this province, namely, the father commissary Fray Balthasar de Santa Cruz, immediately sent some religious to administer the said Indians. In the intermediate congregation of the following year, the houses of the said province were accepted in due form, and ten religious were established in them for the cultivation of those fields of Christendom, and for the new reductions of the heathens.... [Chapter xxix deals with the customs of the Zambals, and is omitted here, as we shall give in a future volume the original MS., on which it is based.] CHAPTER XXX