296 THE OCEAN WOKLD. 



Melville Island to the Gulf of Carpentaria, where the east wind met 

 them and assisted their return, when they revisited all the points of 

 the coast, anchoring in every bay where they hoped to find fish. We 

 were in the first days of April ; the east monsoon was definitively 

 established ; the Malay fishermen were returning in their circuit, and, 

 in passing, they came to exercise their industry in Baffles' Bay. An 

 hour after their arrival they were all at work, and the laboratory for 

 the preparation of their fish was established within our view. The 

 roadstead had no longer the aspect of a vast solitude : wreaths of 

 smoke crowned the summit of Observatory Island, where, as if by 

 enchantment, several large sheds had sprung up, while numerous vessels, 

 supplied with divers, were proceeding to fish for Holothurias, which 

 were passed immediately to the furnaces erected for curing them. In 

 the course of my voyage I have often remarked little walls constructed 

 of dry stones, consisting of several half- circles joined one to the other. 

 I had often, but vainly, tried to discover the use of these little struc- 

 tures : I was now enlightened. The Malays arrived. Their boats 

 were scarcely anchored when several large boilers, in the shape of 

 a half-sphere, the diameter of which might be about forty inches, 

 were placed upon the stone walls of which I have spoken, and now 

 served as improvised furnaces. Near to them are sheds, composed of 

 four strong posts driven into the earth, supporting roofing covered 

 with hurdles, on which it is probably intended to dry the Holothurias. 

 During their sojourn in this bay, the fishermen, having fine weather, 

 made no use of these sheds, having probably only prepared them as 

 a precaution. 



" A crowd of men actively employed in establishing their laboratories 

 gave an unaccustomed appearance to the bay, which could not fail to 

 attract the savage inhabitants of the main land. Very soon, indeed, 

 we could see them hastening from all sides, and nearly all reached the 

 little island, either by swimming or wading through the sheet of 

 shallow water which separates it from the main land. I only saw one 

 pirogue, made of the bark of a tree badly put together, which gave a 

 passage to three of these visitors. When night arrived, the Malays 

 had finished all their preparations ; some of them remained to guard 

 what they had left on shore, all the others returned to their boats. 



" In the interval, a boat from the Astrolabe being wanted to carry 

 some visitors from the island, I profited by the occasion to visit one 



