Page:Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia, Volume 1.djvu/196

 136 SURVEY OF THE INTERTROPICAL' 1818. for this fishery ;.it sails in January during the wes- J,,.e terly monsoon, and coasts from island to island, until it reaches the N.E. end of Timor, when it steers S.E. and S.S.E., which courses carry them to the coast of New Holland; the body of the fleet then steers eastward, leaving here and there a division of fifteen or sixteen proas, under the com- mand of an inferior rajah, who leads the fleet, and is always implicitly obeyed. His proa is the only vessel that is provided with a compass; it also has one or two swivels or small guns, and is perhaps armed with musquets. Their provisions chiefly consist of rice and cocoa-nuts; and their water,. which during the westerly monsoon is easily replenished. on all parts of the coast, is carried in joints of bamboo. The method of curing the trepang is thus de- scribed by Capt-_in Flinders:--" They get the .trepang by diving, in from three to eight fathems water; and where it is abundant, a man will bring up eight or ten at a time. The mede of preserving it is this: the animal is. split down on one side, boiled, and pressed with a weight of stones; then stretched open by slips of bamboo, dried in �the sun, and. afterwards in smoke, when it is fit to be put away in bags, but requires frequent ex- posure to the sun. A thousand trepang make a picol, 9f about 125 Dutch pounds; and 100 p/co/s

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