360 MODE OF CL'ItlNG TREPANG. 



row of shallow iron pans, so arranged on a kind of 

 open platform of large loose stones, that a brisk fire 

 may be kept up under each pan from one end of the 

 row to the other. These things being ready, and 

 the trepang landed, they cut open each animal 

 longitudinally, clean out the inside, and plunge it 

 into boiling water for a short time. Having thus 

 prepared it, they boil the whole in the iron pans in 

 salt water, together with pieces of red mangrove 

 bark. Two men are kept constantly at work, at- 

 tending to eight or ten pans, stirring up the trepang 

 with wooden ladles, adding fresh water, and feeding 

 the fire. It is boiled in this way the whole night, 

 or from eight to ten hours, and then removed to the 

 shed. Here it is spread out in a single layer on 

 the platform of split bamboo, and the fires being 

 lighted below, it is then dried and smoked till ready 

 to be packed away. Each piece is then much 

 shrivelled and shrunk up, and has acquired a dirty, 

 reddish hue. The whole shed is kept carefully 

 covered in during the process, the only entrance 

 being by a small door at one corner, and each end 

 of the gable is protected by a hanging mat. These 

 mats, as I have called them, for want of a better 

 term, are those commonly used by the Malay races 

 for roofing sheds, covering cargo boats, &c. ; they 

 are, in fact, slender hurdles, covered on one side 

 with a thatch of dry palm-leaves in strips, the ends 

 of the leaves overhanging the sides and bottom of 

 the hurdle, so that by placing them in rows, side by 



