Their usual way of taking game is to set strong nets of abaca in the woods in the form of a V, then the beaters and dogs drive the game towards the hunters, who are concealed near the apex, and who kill the deer or wild pigs with their lances whilst entangled in the nets.
I have found the Tagals very satisfactory as domestic servants, although not so hard-working as the Ilocanos. Some of them could clean glass or plate as well as an English butler, and could lay the table for a dinner party and ornament tastefully with flowers and ferns, folding the napkins like a Parisian waiter.
They could also write out the ménu (their orthography having been previously corrected), and serve the dinner and wines in due sequence without requiring any directions during the meal.
Paulino Morillo. A Tagal of Laguna, Butler to the author.
[To face p. 229.
Some of them remained in my service the whole time I was in the Philippines; one of them, Paulino Morillo, came to England with me in charge of my two sons, and afterwards made three voyages to Cuba with me. I gratefully acknowledge his faithful service. His portrait is appended.
I did not find them sufficiently punctual and regular as cooks, nor did they make their purchases in the market to as much advantage as the Chinese cooks, who never bid one against another to raise the price.
As clerks and store-keepers I found the Tagals honest, assiduous, and well-behaved. As draughtsmen they were fairly skilful in drawing from hand sketches, and excelled in copying or tracing, but were quite untrustworthy in taking out quantities and computing. Some of them could write beautiful headings, or design ornamental title-pages. I have by me some of their work that could not be done better even in Germany or France. But the more skilful they were the more irregular was their attendance, and the more they had learned the worse they behaved.