Consequently the 341 ministers in charge who administer the 415 villages and 53 visitas, and in them the number of 184,814 1/2 tributes of native Indians, mestizos, and Christian Sangleys--according to the latest estimate, in which is included the enumeration of strolling Indians--receive for the aforesaid offering each year 69,305 pesos, 3 tomins, and 6 granos, according to those figures. It cannot be learned that for the exaction of this offering they have further permission or privilege than the custom itself, introduced by those very ecclesiastics and religious in their respective parishes; nor in this accountancy is there any other evidence for it than the extra-judicial information acquired by the alcaldes, the natives, and the business men of the provinces, who have seen this practice in use in the manner which is here stated. The amount of this offering added to the 162,530 pesos, 1 tomin, and 6 granos which those ministers receive in stipends and contributions on his Majesty's account, makes the sum of 231,835 pesos, and 5 tomins, which is the amount of the fixed revenue which they receive. Besides this, they have the proceeds of the occasional fees from marriages, burials, baptisms, and other parochial dues, which are collected in all the parishes that are called curacies and ministries; and no account is rendered of the value of these, because it has not been possible to calculate it everywhere for the total computation of the usufruct, but it has always been considered as a large amount. Notwithstanding all this, the religious orders have their incomes lessened by transporting a large number of religious from the kingdoms of Castilla to these islands, at least every six years. In this way they consume a great part of their means, since the passage-money which his Majesty grants them for their transportation is a very limited sum. More than all, we must not fail to remark that the fine appearance of the churches, and the care taken for divine worship and education, and the zeal for souls, which are so conspicuous in the ministries of the religious, cause more admiration than can be expressed, in places so remote as these and in a Christian church so recently formed. The point most worthy of consideration is the subordination and reverence which these natives maintain toward their religious teachers, permitting the latter to flog them, impose penances on them, and rebuke them, when they incur blame in any omissions or faults, without their being offended at the minister. It may therefore truthfully be affirmed that it is these ministers who preserve in obedience, vassalage, and subjection all the neophytes, gathered into settlements--more being due to the authority and despotic manner in which the fathers rule them than to the political scheme of the alcaldes who govern them. This arises, as the Indians themselves admit, from a natural fear which they conceive for the father's superiority, through a