690 ON THE VOLCANO OF TAAL, 



of honey and wax. In the wide and rich pastures of Taal there 

 are large herds of live stock, including cattle, horses, goats and 

 sheep. They also support many wild animals, including deer, 

 monkeys, wild boars, foxes, porcupines, ferrets, hedgehogs ; wild 

 fowl, including ducks and geese, pheasants, pigeons, and snipe are 

 abundant. In the town the principal industry is the production 

 of cotton from the pods of the algodonero (Gossypiwm). The 

 quality of the cotton produced is considered to be superior to that 

 of almost any other portion of the Philippines. Great quantities 

 are prepared by the population, and woven into a multitude of 

 fabrics such as broadcloths and stuffs for wearing apparel, both 

 coarse and fine, in which branch of industry large numbers of 

 persons of both sexes are employed. They also dye the produce 

 of their looms, and the coloui's they are able to give are brilliant 

 and varied, besides being permanent. There is also a considerable 

 amount of oil produced from the Semmum, Til or Teel plant, 

 mainly used in this country for illuminating purposes, and for pre- 

 paring pigments. The seeds of the plant {Sesaimmi indicum), 

 produce the oil which is tasteless as olive oil, and used as an 

 adulterating oil as well as for food. It would form a valuable 

 export but for its tendency to become rancid. A good proportion 

 of the population are fishermen, partly in the sea and partly in the 

 lake. The fishes which are caught in the latter, though the Avaters 

 are nearly fresh and in the driest seasons only slightly brackish, 

 are all marine. They are said to be of an excellent flavour, and 

 prized more highly than any in the Philippines The species 

 most esteemed is what the Spaniards call salmon, but which I 

 belive to be mullet {Mugil), which comes up the river Pansipit in 

 great shoals at the spawning season. The Tagalo natives form a 

 stockade of thick bamboos across the stream when the fish are 

 migrating to and from the lake. Above the stockade there is a 

 broad bamboo platform with raised margins on which numbers of 

 natives, male and female, await the return of the shoals. As soon 

 as the fish perceive the stockade they leap high into the air, and 

 are caught on the platform, where they are quickly despatched 

 by short sticks. They are of good size, weighing on an average 



