Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/673

Rh the numerous species, and has acquired a dreadful celebrity among the fishing and sailing population. In return, they pursue it with great ardor, and, thanks to its greediness in biting at all kinds of bait, with much success. The meat is eaten with relish, but the cartilaginous fins being much sought for by epicures, are too dear to be within the reach of the common people, and appear, along with bird's-nest soups and trepangs, only on the tables of the rich. The trepang, or holothuria, the third favorite viand of the Celestials, along with its concomitants, the sharks' fins and the bird's-nest soups, bears a very high price. Hardly any amount, even up to its weight in gold, is considered too great to pay for this exquisite dish, which, besides its delicate taste, is supposed to have the precious quality of assuring to those who eat it a numerous posterity. The animal, so great is the demand for it, is now rarely found in the Yellow Sea, but those which are consumed in the restaurants of Peking and Canton are brought from Australia and the Marianne Islands, and this fact goes to enhance their price. The Holothurius is, moreover, a very difficult one. The animals live upon the rocks at considerable depths. The fishing is carried on by Malays, who go out in April or May in little boats, providing themselves with long rods armed at the end with a sharp hook that fills the office of a harpoon and a dredge. When the sharp-eyed fisherman discovers a trepang in the depths, he takes his rod and with a dexterous stroke sweeps the animal from the rock and lands it in the boat. The trepang-catchers are, however, much aided by the marvelous clearness and smoothness of the water in the regions where their game is found.

Chinese fishing-nets are made precisely like those used in the West, preferably of hemp; but, in very large nets, the silk of a wild silk-worm is used, to make them lighter and more manageable, as cotton is used by the Dutch fishermen. Before casting a new net into the sea, it is dyed a suitable color. For this purpose, it is dipped into a solution of mangrove-bark, to preserve it from rotting, and is then colored with hog's blood. The new net is then spread upon the beach; candles are lit, and tapers of paper and incense are burned about it, to secure the blessing of the Queen of Heaven. If the net is of cotton, maceration in oil takes the place of the dipping in the solution of mangrove-bark. The harpoons and the hooks are of iron, the lines of hemp, straw, and bamboo-fiber; and the boat-sails are also generally made of straw or bamboo-fiber, as Western canvases are still beyond the means of the fishermen.

Six kinds of boats are used, according to the nature of the fishery in which they are to be employed, the largest of which, the ta-tsang, requires a crew of six men. It is fifty or sixty feet long, and, like all the Chinese junks, is flat-bottomed, with square bow and stern. The rudder is rigged in a similar manner to those of our lighters, but is bored with round holes which let the water through and augment its