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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
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