supply the Manilla market, to the exclusion of all
other employment except, perhaps, catching and drying enough fish to
season their rice, which most of them purchase, and very few of them
grow. These Indians, although few in number, are to a considerable
extent isolated from the people of the country, from what cause I
know not, but they very rarely associate or intermarry except with
each other. The ducks they breed for the market are well trained,
being perfectly obedient to the call of their different masters,
and on hearing his signal come quickly sailing back, should they have
gone too far away. They get fat on the fish and tender sedgy grass,
and when placed on the dinner-table are very good eating.

After entering the lake, which is studded with wooded islets, the
largest of which is named Talim, the gun is called into requisition,
as the immense flocks of wild duck breeding here afford a constant
sport, and the advantages of their acquisition are not likely to be
overlooked either by the _gourmand_ or the hungry tourist. They are,
however, rather wild, and the best mode of shooting them appears
to be to dress in a blue cotton shirt and trousers like an Indian,
and paddle off as near the flock as they will permit; and then for a
chance among them. If there is more than one person in the grass-boat,
which is a very small and unhooded banca, which the natives use for
carrying small quantities of grass for horses, &c., the ducks are
apt to take the alarm, although I have sometimes been successful in
getting near them with an Indian paddling the boat.

Besides the ducks there are several other kinds of wild fowl,
and on coasting round the shores of Talim, an alligator basking
in the sun, frequently offers a mark for a ball, which, however,
seldom proves fatal. I struck one on the scales without producing
any apparent damage, the distance being probably about thirty yards,
and he merely shook himself a little and tumbled into the water from
off the rock he had been sleeping on, without seeming much startled
or to be in the least wounded. They are said to reach an immense age,
and the most incredible stories are told, and apparently believed,
by the natives themselves of their traditional longevity.

On Talim some deer and pigs may now and then be seen, although it
is too much frequented and disturbed to be at all a sure cover for
them; my companion shot a very beautiful variety of the hawk on the
island. After enj