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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.
There the Star-Fish sprawled on the sand, the Sea-Cucumber crawled along, expanding and contracting its worm-like body; there the Sea-Urchin hid himself in the rock, and shells large and small, pink, blue, red and all the colors of the rainbow lay scattered about on the sand and rocks.
One sea product, the bêche-de-mer, a marine animal commonly called "sea-cucumber," is highly prized by the Chinese, who use large quantities; most of it is gathered by the Fijians. Sugar, however, is the chief product of the islands, and the sugar plantations are owned by great companies that have invested millions of pounds sterling in the business.
For, though I promised you a walk in the forest, I did not undertake to find hotels there. So breakfast as a man who will most likely not have his dinner till very late." I did honour to the repast. It was composed of several kinds of fish, and slices of sea-cucumber, and different sorts of seaweed.
It may be that spiny gargoyle of the sea, a sculpin; or a soft and stupid bake from the mud-flats. It may be any one of the grotesque products of Neptune's vegetable garden, a sea-cucumber, a sea-carrot, or a sea-cabbage. Or it may be nothing at all.
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.
Here is a preserve of sea-cucumber, which a Malay would declare to be unrivalled in the world; here is a cream, of which the milk has been furnished by the cetacea, and the sugar by the great fucus of the North Sea; and, lastly, permit me to offer you some preserve of anemones, which is equal to that of the most delicious fruits."
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