TURTLE AND SPONGE FISHING. 285 



Pacific are inferior to those of the Levant or Red Sea. It may 

 be so, but sponges are occasionally met with in the Pacific as 

 large and well-shaped, and apparently as soft, as any to be 

 found in the London market. 



To fish for sponges with success requires a good deal of 

 practice, as they are very difficult to recognise in the water 

 when in a live state. They grow on the coral, and very much 

 in the crevices of it, and are not by any means conspicuous, as 

 they look like a part of the stone. When removed they are 

 heavy, slimy, hard, and as black as tar. The best of them are 

 in the form of a mushroom, and they are found from the size 

 of a man's fist up to 2 feet in diameter. They usually lie within 

 the lagoons in water of a depth from 1 to 10 fathoms. They 

 are inhabited by animalcules, which in the process of cleaning 

 are decomposed and washed away. In order to effect this 

 object on a sandy beach where the tide ebbs and flows, a 

 number of forked sticks are driven into the sand, and upon 

 them are fastened slender poles as a sort of framework ; from 

 these, sponges are suspended by strings, in such a manner that 

 when the tide is in the sponges are floating in it ; when it is 

 not they are exposed to the wind and sun. In the latter case 

 the animalculae die and decay, and by alternate scorchings and 

 washings, the sponge becomes cleaned and bleached as well as 

 softened, in consequence of the removal of the glutinous 

 creatures which had inhabited it. When prepared in this 

 manner the usual way of barter in the islands where they are 

 chiefly obtained is four large sponges for one yard of calico. 

 Sponges are much improved by washing them in hot fresh 

 water strongly impregnated with the alkali of wood-ashes. 



