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Updated: June 9, 2025
I did not have much sport, as I could see nothing worth shooting, but I was much interested in wading in the warm water to observe the multiform animal life of the reef. There was the "bêche-de-mer," the sea-cucumber, yellow or purplish-black, a shapeless mass lying in pools; this is a delicacy highly valued by the Chinese and therefore a frequent article of exportation.
There came to our beach one afternoon some poor exiles from Princess Charlotte Bay 300 miles to the north. Exiled they felt themselves to be, and were longing to return to their own country although their engagement for a six months' cruise in quest of the passive beche-de-mer had but just begun. One boy stepped along with an air of pride and importance.
They were either visiting the island to procure turtle and bêche-de-mer or had merely called there en route to some other destination, and the change in the wind had unexpectedly compelled them to put ashore. Beyond all doubt they must have been surprised by the warmth of the reception they encountered.
The organ which could play that tune as he had once heard it when his boss took him to a concert at Cairns had to be discovered, and to earn money to buy it Mammerroo shipped on these detestable beche-de-mer cruises. In the meantime he would play with all his energies and with endless repetition the halting, nerve-disturbing notes he knew to be incorrect. "That boy will drive me mad.
If they told a boy they would knock seven bells out of him if he did a certain thing, when he did that thing, seven bells invariably were knocked out of him. Mauki did not know what seven bells were, but they occurred in beche-de-mer, and he imagined them to be the blood and teeth that sometimes accompanied the process of knocking out seven bells.
Amidst the thrilling sensations of the moment Iris found herself idly speculating as to the meaning of bêche-de-mer, and why this common sailor pronounced French so well. Her thoughts reverted to the steamer. "It surely cannot be possible that the Sirdar has gone to pieces a magnificent vessel of her size and strength?" He answered quietly "It is too true, madam.
There lay the vast island of New Guinea, dominating the shores of Northern Australia, separated at one point by only twenty miles of coral reef from British possessions, commanding the Torres Straits route, commanding the increasing pearl- shell fisheries, and also the beche-de-mer fishery.
Among other things he learned beche-de-mer English, with which he could talk with all white men, and with all recruits who otherwise would have talked in a thousand different dialects. Also, he learned certain things about the white men, principally that they kept their word. If they told a boy he was going to receive a stick of tobacco, he got it.
One member of the great "sea-cucumber," or BECHE-DE-MER, family is especially noticeable because it is decorated with colours of which a gaily plumaged bird might be envious, though it has no other claim to comeliness. Most primitive in form merely a flattened sac, oval and four inches long by three inches broad, with a purple and white mouth puckered as if contracted by a drawn string.
The vessel that goes in quest of 'beche-de-mer' takes several expert divers usually Kanakas, or South Sea Islanders and having arrived at the ground they propose fishing, a sort of head-quarters is established on some convenient island, where vegetables are planted, to stave off the scurvy that would otherwise soon attack the adventurers.
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