356 THE OCEAN. 
obtained by spearing them upon the rocks in shallow 
water; but the ordinary mode of obtaining them is 
by diving in from three to five fathoms, and collect- 
ing them by hand. A man will bring up thus eight 
or ten at a time. They are prepared for. the mar- 
ket by being split down one side, boiled, and pressed 
flat with stones: then, being stretched on bamboo 
slips, they are dried in the sun, and afterwards in 
smoke, and packed away in bags. In this state it 
is put on board the junks, and is in great demand 
in China for the composition of nutritious soups, 
in which that singular people so much delight. The 
quantity of this article of food, annually sent to 
China from Macassar, amounts to 8333 hundred- 
weight; the price of which varies, according to the 
quality, (for there are upwards of thirty varieties 
distinguished in the market,) from thirty shillings 
sterling to upwards of twenty guineas per hnndred- 
weight. The extent of the traffic may be inferred 
from the number of vessels employed in it: Captain 
Flinders was informed, when near the north coast 
of New Holland, that a fleet of sixty proas, carrying 
a thousand men, had left Macassar for that coast 
two months before, in search of this sea-slug; and 
Captain King was informed that two hundred proas 
annually leave Macassar for this fishery. They sail 
in January, coasting from island to island, till they 
reach Timor, and thence ‘steer for New Holland, 
when they scatter themselves in small fleets, and 
having fished along the coast, return about the end 
of May, when the westerly monsoon breaks up. 
The periodical change of the direction of the 
