hose born in the country, mostly cross-breeds, drive well.
[Black cattle.] Black cattle are generally in the hands of a few
individuals; some of whom in Camarines possess from 1000 to 3000 head;
but they are hardly saleable in the province, although they have been
exported profitably for some years past to Manila. The black cattle
of the province are small but make good beef. They are never employed
for labor, and the cows are not milked. The Filipinos, who generally
feed on fish, crabs, mussels, and wild herbs together with rice,
prefer the flesh of the carabao to that of the ox; but they eat it
only on feastdays.
[Sheep.] The old race of sheep, imported by the Spaniards previous
to this century, still flourishes and is easily propagated. Those
occasionally brought from Shanghai and Australia are considered to be
deficient in endurance, unfruitful, and generally short-lived. Mutton
is procurable every day in Manila; in the interior, however, at
least in the eastern provinces, very rarely; although the rearing
of sheep might there be carried on without difficulty, and in many
places most profitably; the people being too idle to take care of the
young lambs, which they complain are torn to pieces by the dogs when
they wander about free. The sheep appear to have been acclimatized
with difficulty. Morga says that they were brought several times
from New Spain, but did not multiply; so that in his time this kind
of domestic animal did not exist. [Swine.] Pork is eaten by wealthy
Europeans only when the hog has been brought up from the litter at
home. In order to prevent its wandering away, it is usually enclosed
in a wide meshed cylindrical hamper of bamboo, upon filling which
it is slaughtered. The native hogs are too nauseous for food, the
animals maintaining themselves almost entirely on ordure.
[Guesses at history from language.] Crawfurd observes that the names
of all the domestic animals in the Philippines belong to foreign
languages, Those of the dog, swine, goat, carabao, cat, even of
the fowl and the duck, are Malay or Javanese; while those of the
horse, ox, and sheep, are Spanish. Until these animals were first
imported from Malaysia, the aborigines were less fortunate in this
respect than the Americans, who at least had the alpaca, llamanda,
vicuna. The names likewise of most of the cultivated plants, such as
rice, yams, sugar-cane, cacao and indigo, are said to be Malay, as
well as those for silver, copper
|