COASTS OF AUSTRALIA. 
137 
are a cargo for a proa. It is carried to Timor 
and sold to the Chinese, who meet them there ; 
and when all the proas are assembled, the fleet 
returns to Macassar. By Timor, seemed to be 
meant Timor-laoet ; for when I inquired concern- 
ing the English, Dutch, and Portuguese there, 
Pobasso (the rajah in command) knew nothing of 
them : he had heard of Coepang, a Dutch settle- 
ment, but said it was upon another island. 
“ There are two kinds of trepang. The black, 
called baatoo , is sold to the Chinese for forty 
dollars the picol ; the white, or gray, called koro, 
is worth no more than twenty. The baatoo seems 
to be what we found upon the coral reefs near the 
Northumberland Islands ; and were a colony esta- 
blished in Broad Sound, or Shoal-water Bay, it 
might perhaps derive considerable advantage 
from the trepang. In the Gulf of Carpentaria we 
did not observe any other than the gray slug*.” 
After having fished along the coast to the east- 
ward until the westerly monsoon breaks up, 
they return, and by the last day of May each de- 
tached fleet leaves the coast without waiting to 
collect into one body. On their return they steer 
N.W., which brings them to some part of Timor, 
from whence they easily retrace their steps to 
* Flinders, vol. ii, p. 231. 
1818. 
June 
5—13. 
