[18] Report of Conditions in the Philippines, Antonio de Morga, Manila, June 8, 1598.—Bl. and Rb., Vol. 10, pp. 85–86.
“The fishing is done with salambaos, and with fine-meshed nets; with which they block up the bay and kill the small fish. These nets ought not to be employed, and the size of the mesh should be regulated so that the supply of fish will not be exhausted; for already experience has demonstrated that they are not so abundant as formerly.”
Night fishing was also practiced. “What we call pitch in this region is a resin from which the natives make candles in order to use in their night-fishing, and is the same as the copal of Nueva España, or at the most differs from it very little in color, smell, and taste.” (Expedition of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi. [Résumé of Contemporaneous Documents, 1558–68.]—Bl. and Rb., Vol. 2, p. 153.)
Artificial fish-culture seems to have been introduced by the Japanese before the Spanish arrival. “The greatest of the Japanese industries, which they taught the natives, was breeding ducks and fishes for export. The rivers and coast waters of the Archipelago provided splendid feeding grounds for numerous varieties of fish and fowl, and the Japanese assisted nature’s breeding process, particularly in the case of fishes in a manner followed by present day experts. The roe were transported to safe places for development, tanks were used to guard small fish from harm, and various other precautionary measures were adopted properly to rear the fish. To the early Spaniards, the pisciculture of the Filipinos was regarded almost as a new art, so much more advanced it was than fish breeding methods in Europe.” (Commercial Progress in the Philippine Islands, Antonio M. Regidor and J. Warren T. Mason, 1905.)
[19] In some of these islands pearl oysters are found, especially in the Calamianes, where some have been obtained that are large and exceedingly clear and lustrous. Neither is this means of profit utilized. (By the Spaniards, he means, as is clear from the preceding paragraph, which states that, “if the industry and efforts of the Spaniards were to be converted into the working of the gold, as much would be obtained from any one of these islands as from those provinces which produce the most in the world. But since they attend to other means of gain rather than to this, as will be told in due time, they do not pay the proper attention to this matter.”) In all parts, seed pearls are found in the ordinary oysters, and there are oysters as large as a buckler. From the (shells of the) latter the natives manufacture beautiful articles. There are also very large turtles in all the islands. Their shells are utilized by the natives, and sold as an article of commerce to the Chinese and Portuguese, and other nations who go after them and esteem them highly, because of the beautiful things made from them.
“On the coasts of any of these islands are found many small white snail shells, called siguei. The natives gather them and sell them by measure to the Siamese, Cambodians, Pantanes, and other peoples of the mainland. It serves there as money, and those nations trade with it, as they do with cacaobeans in Nueva España.” (Antonio de Morga, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, Chap. 8.—Bl. and Rb., Vol. 16, p. 103.)
[20] Description of Filipinas Islands, Bartholome de Letona, 1662.—Bl. and Rb., Vol. 36, p. 201.
“All these islands are, in many districts, rich in placers and mines of gold, a metal which the natives dig and work. However, since the advent of the Spaniards in the land, the natives proceed more slowly in this, and content themselves with what they already possess in jewels and gold ingots, handed down from antiquity and inherited from their ancestors. This is considerable for he must be poor and wretched who has no gold chains, calombigas (bracelets), and earrings.
Some placers and mines were worked at Paracale in the province of Camarines, where there is good gold mixed with copper. This commodity is also traded in the Ilocos, for at the rear of this province, which borders the seacoast, are certain lofty and rugged mountains which extend as far as Cagayan. On the slopes of these mountains, in the interior, live many natives, as yet unsubdued, and among whom no incursion has been made, who are called Ygolotes. These natives possess rich mines, many of gold and silver mixed. They are wont to dig from them only the amount necessary for their wants. They descend to certain places to trade this gold (without completing its refining or preparation), with the Ilocos; there they exchanged it for rice, swine, carabaos, cloth and other things that they need. The Ilocos complete its refining and preparation, and by their medium it is distributed throughout the country. Although an effort has been made with these Ygolotes to discover their mines, and how they work them, and their method of working the metal, nothing definite has been learned, for the Ygolotes fear that the Spaniards will go to seek them for their gold, and say that they keep the gold better in the earth than in their houses.
There are also many gold mines and placers in the other islands, especially among the Pintados, on the Botuan River in Mindanao, and in Sebu, where a mine of good gold is worked, called Taribon. If the industry and efforts of the Spaniards were to be converted into the working of the gold, as much would be obtained from any one of these islands as from those provinces which produce the most in the world. But since they attend to other means of gain rather than to this, they do not pay the proper attention to this matter.” (Antonio de Morga, Sucesos; Bl. and Rb., Vol. 16, pp. 101–103.)