ia, which is
composed of four auditors and one fiscal who have cognizance of cases
both civil and criminal; then there are the other employes of the
royal Audiencia, and the royal officials with their tribunal. The
jurisdiction [of this audiencia] is the most extensive in the
Spanish monarchy; for it extends to all territories that are
discovered and pacified in that great archipelago (the largest in
the world)--extending more than four hundred leguas in a straight
line, and more than a thousand in circumference--and to all yet to
be discovered and pacified, an immense region. The city has twelve
perpetual regidors, who on the first of January in every year elect
two alcaldes-in-ordinary; these have jurisdiction throughout the
district of the municipality, which has a radius of five leguas.

36. On the eastern side of the city, but outside of it and in front
of its walls, at the distance of a musket-shot is a silk-market which
they call Parian. Usually 15,000 Chinese live there; they are Sangleys,
natives of Great China, and all merchants or artisans. They possess,
allotted among themselves by streets and squares, shops containing
all the kinds of merchandise and all the trades that are necessary in
a community. The place is very orderly and well arranged, and a great
convenience to the citizens. It is [an indication of] their greatness
that although they are so few, they have so many workmen and servants
assigned to their service. The Sangleys live in wooden houses; they
have a governor of their own nation, and a Spanish alcalde-mayor and
the other officers of justice, with a notary; also a jail. They have
a parish church, where the sacraments, the divine word, and burial
are administered to the 4,000 Christians among these Sangleys; the
rest of them are heathen.

37. Accordingly the commerce of this city is extensive, rich, and
unusually profitable; for it is carried on by all these Chinese
and their ships, with those of all the islands above mentioned and
of Tunquin, Cochinchina, Camboja, and Sian--four separate kingdoms,
which lie opposite these islands on the continent of Great China--and
of the gulfs and the numberless kingdoms of Eastern India, Persia,
Bengala, and Ceilan, when there are no wars; and of the empire and
kingdoms of Xapon. The diversity of the peoples, therefore, who are
seen in Manila and its environs is the greatest in the world; for
these include men from all kingdoms and nations--Espana, Franc