The troops of Captain Batchelor’s command were later on relieved by the 16th Infantry, commanded by Colonel Hood, under whom the above group of three provinces finally became the “Second District of the Department of Northern Luzon.” As part of the plan to provide the reader with a fair general idea of Luzon conveniently portable in memory, he is requested to note, at this point, that hereinafter the Cagayan valley, with its three provinces,[51] will be alluded to as a district containing 12,000 square miles and 300,000 people. As was remarked concerning the original military district commanded by General Young, to wit, the First District, so of Colonel Hood’s district, the Second—that is to say, as the Ilocano country may some day become the state of Ilocos, so, for like geographical and other governmental reasons, the three provinces of the Cagayan valley may some day become the state of Cagayan in the possible Philippine republic of the future.

Having now followed the “far-flung battle line” of the volunteers of ’99 and their comrades in arms, the regulars, from Manila northward across the rice paddies of central Luzon and over the mountains to the northern extremity of the island, let us return to the central plain, for reasons which will be stated in so doing. Between the China Sea and the coast range which forms the western boundary of the central plain of Luzon, there is a long strip of territory—a west wing of the plain, as it were—about 125 miles long, with an average width of not more than twenty miles, stretching from Manila Bay to Lingayen Gulf. This is divided, for governmental purposes into two provinces, Bataan on the south, whose southern extremity lay on Admiral Dewey’s port side as he entered Manila Bay the night before the naval battle of May 1, 1898, and Zambales on the north. The area and population of this territory are as follows:

ProvinceArea (sq. m.)Population
Bataan53746,787
Zambales2,125104,549
2,662151,336

Also, between the Pacific Ocean and the coast range which forms the eastern boundary of the plain is a longer, narrower, and very sparsely populated strip, or east wing, divided also into two provinces, Principe on the north and Infanta on the south, each supposed to contain about fifteen thousand people. Principe and Infanta are wholly unimportant, except that, to avoid confusion, we must account for all the provinces visible on the maps of Luzon. These two provinces never gave any trouble and no one ever bothered about them.[52] In the mountains of Zambales and Bataan, however, as in most of the other provinces of the archipelago, the struggle was long kept up, just as the Boers kept up their war for independence against Great Britain about the same time, by guerrilla warfare.

The central plain with five provinces has already been fully described. If to this plain you add its two wings, above mentioned, you have the nine provinces of central Luzon you see on the map. And if to them you add the six provinces of the Ilocos country and the three of the Cagayan valley, you have clearly before you the political make-up of northern Luzon—eighteen provinces in all. When central Luzon was arranged by districts under the military occupation, it was divided into three parts, the Third, Fourth, and Fifth districts of the Department of Northern Luzon, the Third District being under General Jacob H. Smith of Samar fame,[53] the Fourth under General Funston, and the Fifth under General Grant. The Sixth and last district of northern Luzon was made up of the city of Manila and adjacent territory.

General Smith’s district, the Third, comprised the provinces of

ProvinceArea (sq. m.)Population
Zambales2,125104,549
Pangasinan1,193397,902
Tarlac1,205135,107
4,523637,558

Pangasinan with its near 400,000 people is the largest, in point of population, of the twenty-five provinces of Luzon, and the third largest of the archipelago.

General Funston’s district, the Fourth, comprised the provinces of

ProvinceArea (sq. m.)Population
Nueva Ecija2,169134,147
Principe[54]33115,853
2,500150,000