220 FISHERIES OP THE ORIENTAL REGION, 



fathoms. These Holothurians were very abundant in Arnheim's 

 Bay where Flinders met the Malays, so that a diver would 

 bring up eight or ten at a time. They were preserved by scalding 

 them for a few minutes in boiling water after splitting them up 

 and depriving them of their intestines. They then smoked or 

 simply dried them in the sun stretched on pieces of bamboo 

 after being pressed between stones. The prahus return in the 

 beginning of the south-east monsoon, that is about the end of 

 February. The chief of the Malay fleet told Flinders that he had 

 been trading to Australia every year for the previous 20 years, and 

 he believed that their fleet was the first which came there, a state- 

 ment which we have good reason to question. The fishery is 

 practised entirely for the Chinese market. I do not think that 

 the Malays consume the tripang, but, as everyone is aware, it is 

 so much sought after in China, and is an expensive luxury, which 

 leads to a very profitable trade. Crawfurd remarks, however, 

 that as no mention is made of the article by the early Portuguese 

 and S[)anish writers, the trade began witli the comparatively 

 modern arrival of the Chinese in the Archipelago. 



It is scarcely necessary to do more than mention the fishery 

 hei'e, unless it be to correct several popular errors about the natui-e 

 of the sea-cucumber as the Holothiiria is called. In the various 

 descriptions of the trade, perhaps the best is that given by Capt. 

 A. Cheyne to the well-known P. L. Simmonds, author of 

 " Animal Products and their Uses," but it is full of expressions as 

 to the dimensions and parts of the animal which would lead to a 

 total misconception of its nature. Thus it is called a fish, and the 

 ambulacral tube-feet are called teats, and it is said of a sort 

 called Bankolungan, that it is "brown on the back; the belly 

 white, crusted with lime, with a row of teats on each side :'' 

 furthermore we are told that it is hard and rigid, and scarcely 

 possesses any power of locomotion, while others are said to be 

 known by exuding a white adhesive substance which sticks to the 

 fingers when handled. 



It may be necessary, therefore, to explain that tripangs, beches- 

 de-mer or sea-cucumbers, belong to the class Echinodermata, and 



