They are caught in shoals in both the salt and the fresh waters of the Philippine and Indian archipelagos, and, when salted and dried by the natives, form an important article of food, eaten either in soup or as a kind of potted paste.  They are found in every market, and are largely exported to China.  I was unable to shoot any of the waterfowl, for the tangles of the seaweed prevented my boat from getting near them.

[A neglected product.] When I revisited the same lake in February, I found its waters so greatly fallen that they had left a circular belt of shore extending all around the lake, in most places nearly a hundred feet broad.  The withdrawal of the waters had compressed the tangled seaweed into a kind of matting, which, bleached by the sun, and nearly an inch thick, covered the whole of the shore, and hung suspended over the stunted bushes which, on my first visit, had been under water.  I have never either seen elsewhere, or heard any one mention, a similar phenomenon.  This stuff, which could be had for nothing, was excellent for rifle-stoppers and for the stuffing of birds, so I took a great quantity of it with me.  This time the bird-hunting went well, too.

The native priest of Batu was full of complaints about his parishioners, who gave him no opportunities of gaining an honest penny.  “I am never asked for a mass, sir; in fact, this is such a miserable hole that it is shunned by Death itself.  In D., where I was for a long time coadjutor, we had our couple of burials regularly every day at three dollars a head, and as many masses at a dollar apiece as we had time to say, besides christenings and weddings, which always brought a little more grist to the mill.  But here nothing takes place, and I scarcely make anything.”  This stagnant state of things had induced him to turn his attention to commerce.  The average native priest, of those I saw, could hardly be called a credit to his profession.  Generally ignorant, often dissipated, and only superficially acquainted with his duties, the greater part of his time was given over to gambling, drinking, and other objectionable amusements.  Little care was taken to preserve a properly decorous behavior, except when officiating in the church, when they read with an absurd assumption of dignity, without understanding a single word.  The conventos are often full of girls and children, all of whom help themselves with their fingers out of a common dish.  The worthy padre of Batu introduced a couple of pretty girls to me as his two poor sisters, whom, in spite of his poverty, he supported; but the servants about the place openly spoke of these young ladies’ babies as being the children of the priest.