United States or Uzbekistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Blacks remain for hours together in the water on the reefs when beche-de-mer fishing, and the record of an attack is rare indeed. Recently a vigorous young black boy was attacked by a groper while diving for beche-de-mer.
He had farmed savages and savagery, and from fever and hardship, the crack of Sniders and the lash of the overseers, had wrested five millions of money in the form of bêche-de-mer, sandalwood, pearl-shell and turtle-shell, ivory nuts and copra, grasslands, trading stations, and plantations.
Collier was working steadily; several kinds of "sea-puddings," closely allied to the famous beche-de-mer the table delicacy of China also were within his discoveries. The boy's eyesight was keen, and the collecting fever found him an easy victim, but it was back-breaking work to stoop over the water glass all day. After about a week of this, however, a surprise awaited him.
The old Dean shot a swift glance at his nephew; then took his arm and walked on, and looked at the vast mass of the cathedral and at the quiet English garden in its evening shadow. "Copra, bêche-de-mer, mother-of-pearl, Huaheine," he murmured. "And these strange foreign things are the commonplaces of your life!" Peggy and Marmaduke lagged behind a little. She pressed his arm.
We that's I and another man that's all the company as yet two's company, you know own a trading fleet." "You own ships?" cried Peggy. "Rather. Own 'em, sail 'em, navigate 'em, stoke 'em, clean out the boilers, sit on the safety valves when we want to make speed, do every old thing " "And what do you trade in?" asked the Dean. "Copra, bêche-de-mer, mother-of-pearl " "Mother-of-pearl!
"By and by, the schooners full of copra and beche-de-mer and our trees empty of cocoanuts, the three skippers and that mate called us all together for a big talk. And they said they were very glad that we had learned our lesson, and we said for the ten-thousandth time that we were sorry and that we would not do it again. Also, we poured sand upon our heads.
They were beche-de-mer fishers, and for nearly a year had been living in this savage spot the only white men inhabiting the great island, whose northern coast line sweeps in an irregular half-moon curve for more than three hundred miles from Cape Stephens to within sight of the lofty mountains of New Guinea.
Some of the islands are turned to profitable account by the export of guano. On Raine Island, so extensive are the deposits of guano that a railroad has been built to facilitate handling the product. Bêche-de-mer, or trepang, is a name applied to the flesh of certain sea slugs or sea worms found in the Indian seas. Of this substance great quantities are gathered annually.
Bassett had pricked up his ears at the suggestion that it was a white man's head; for he had long since come to accept that these jungle-dwellers, in the midmost centre of the great island, had never had intercourse with white men. Certainly he had found them without the almost universal beche-de-mer English of the west South Pacific. Nor had they knowledge of tobacco, nor of gunpowder.
For a trifling consideration they will successfully undertake feats which prove that they are almost as much at home in deep water as upon land, and when put to the test their strength and hardihood are extraordinary. Boys employed on beche-de-mer boats become almost amphibious.
Word Of The Day