42 OX THE COLLECTION AND PREPARATION FOR MARKET OF 



when boiled about a minute, or as soon as they shrink and feel hard ; the 

 other method is to boil them as before stated ; but in boiling either way, 

 the fish ought, if properly cooked, to dry like a boiled egg immediately on 

 being taken out of the pot. If curing a large quantity at a time, I should 

 prefer boiling them slightly at first ; and when half dry, I would reboil 

 them. This method I have tried, and find it makes the beche de mer look 

 much better, and less wrinkled when dry. Although they require a little 

 more time in drying if reboiled, yet I am convinced they would sell better. 

 Beche de mer dried in the sun fetches a higher price than that dried over 

 a wood fire. But this method would not answer in curing a ship's cargo, 

 as they take fully twenty days to dry; whereas by smoking them they 

 are well cured in four days. 



Much skill is required in drying biche de mer, as well as in boiling it, as 

 too much heat will cause it to blister, and get porous, like sponge ; whereas, 

 too little heat again will make it spoil, and get putrid within twenty-four 

 hours after being boiled. There is, likewise, great care and method re- 

 quisite in conducting the gutting ; for if this be not properly attended to, 

 by keeping the fish in warm water, and from exposure to the sun, it will, 

 when raw, soon subside into a blubbery mass, and become putrid in a few 

 hours after being caught. 



A vessel fitting out for a beche de mer voyage should be well manned and 

 armed, and have good strong boarding nettings, with waterproof arm-chests 

 for the tops, sufficiently large to hold a dozen muskets each. She will re- 

 quire to have a number of large pots or boilers on board, similar to whalers 

 try-pots ; and skimmers, ladles, fire-rakes, shovels, buckets, tubs, cross-cut 

 saws, and axes, and, if procurable, a quantity of bricks to place the pots on, 

 as the stones found on coral islands will not stand the fire. 



The first thing to be done on arrival at an island where the slug is plen- 

 tiful, is to erect a large curing-house on shore, about ninety feet in length, 

 thirty feet in breadth, and the sides about ten feet in height. These 

 houses are generally built of island materials, and thatched with 

 mats, made by the natives, of cocoa-nut leaves ; the thatch must be 

 well put on, so as to prevent the rain from penetrating. The sides 

 are likewise covered in with these mats, and a small door should 

 be left in each end. Platforms, or batters, for drying the slug on, 

 are then erected along one side of the house. They should run the whole 

 length, and be about eight feet in breadth ; the lower one about breast high 

 from the ground, and the upper three feet above that. The frames are 

 generally made of cocoa-nut trees, or pandanus, and covered with two or 

 three layers of split bamboo, or reeds, seized close, so as to form a sort of 

 network for the fish to lay on. Much care and skill is required in the con- 

 struction of these hatters, or platforms, so as to prevent the beche de mer 

 from burning, Avhich it would be liable to, were they not properly fitted. 

 A trench, about six feet in breadth, and two in depth, is then dug the whole 

 length of the hatters for the fires. Tubs are placed at short distances along 

 the side of the trench, filled with salt water, and a good supply of buckets 



