58 VOYAGE FROM INDIA TO SIAM AND MALACCA. 



collected them for sale. The other kind was the black one, 

 which have a rather prickly roughness on their skin ; they are 

 thinner, softer and longer, and are not collected. There were 

 many kinds of shells here, specially kinds of Neritas, which 

 clung- to the rocks, two kinds of patochis, many Chitons, which 

 are also collected to be sold to the Chinese, some kinds of 

 Porcelains, etc. The most remarkable things I found, were some 

 l-reuz hapen and ostrea isorjiiovmm ; they were in such places where 

 the shore was low and shingly, and covered with a little mud. 

 The ostrea isor/nomim specially are most frequently found under 

 medium-sized stones or between them. The sea-stars were very 

 big here, each point measured about one and half feet, so that 

 stretched out the points from one to the other opposite one were 

 three feet in length, although the real body w^as not larger than 

 a Dutch ducat. Between the stones I found many kinds of 

 flesh corals, which all had opened. Some of them consisted of 

 angular tubes, which were easily divisible; they were quite 

 yellow and could easily be detached from the stones. Others 

 crept back into their respective holes as soon as I touched them, 

 and it was impossible to get anything else but fragments. To- 

 day I could only find out that their mouths were sometimes 

 ^ of an inch in diameter, they took different shapes and were 

 sometimes oblong, angular, or round ; at times they stretched or 

 they were pressed together by others near them. The inside 

 (Discus) of this species was of the most brilliant gieen that can 

 be imagined, and was smooth and convex. The edge consisted 

 of innumerable fibres, arranged in irregular order ; they were 

 purple with white points. I could not see the opening of the 

 mouth without a magnifying glass, but as soon as I touched them 

 they all sent forth some water. 



The other kind had a sky blue disc, and the edge was 

 yellow-grey. The bottom of the sea was filled with many kinds 

 of Alci/omus all of which I had already seen in Trinquemalle. 

 The dark night made me postpone my researches until the next 

 morning. 



3. — At midday I went again to this island firtt as the low 

 tide was setting in. First of all I visited the huts of some 

 Malays and learned from them that they boil the large Bolothitrut 

 first in salt-water; after that they are put on a stand, whide is 

 made of split bamboo, is half a man high, two yards broad and 



