128 SPORT, TRAVEL, AND ADVENTURE 



and limpid as distilled water is said to possess qualities 

 far superior to that obtained from the decaying livers 

 of codfish in the restoration of health and vigour to 

 constitutions enfeebled and wasted by disease. 



Using a barbless point attached to a long and strong 

 line, and fitted into a socket in the heavy end of the 

 harpoon -shaft, the black waits and watches. With 

 the utmost caution and in absolute silence he follows 

 in his canoe the dugong as it feeds, and strikes as it 

 rises to breathe. A mad splash, a wild rush ! The 

 canoe bounces over the water as the line tightens. 

 Its occupant sits back and steers with flippers of bark, 

 until as the game weakens he is able to approach and 

 plunge another harpoon into it. Sometimes the end 

 of the line is made fast to a buoy of light wood which 

 the creature tows until exhausted. 



So contractible and tough is the skin, that once the 

 point of the harpoon is embedded in it, nothing but 

 a strong and direct tug will release it. Some blacks 

 substitute for the barbless point four pieces of thin 

 fencing wire each about four inches long, bound tightly 

 together at one end, the loose ends being sharpened 

 and slightly diverged. This is fastened to the line 

 and inserted in the socket of the haft, and when it 

 hits it holds to the death, though the animal may 

 weigh three-quarters of a ton. 



It is stated that the blacks towards Cape York, 

 having secured the animal with a line attached to a 

 dart insufficient in length to penetrate the hide and 

 the true skin, seize it biy the nose, and plug the nostrils 

 with their fingers until it drowns. Here, too, the 

 natives have discovered that the nose is the vulnerable 

 part of the dugong, and having first harpooned it in 



