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Updated: May 13, 2025
We first walked along the beach, till stopped by the vertical cliffs at the east end of the island, finding a place where meat had been smoked, a turtle-shell still greasy, and some cut wood, the leaves of which were still green, showing that some boat had been here very recently.
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 beche-de-mer, sandalwood, pearl-shell and turtle-shell, ivory nuts and copra, grasslands, trading stations, and plantations.
"Then," he went on, "this fellow Rul said that although he and the other natives on board were quite willing to go anywhere with me, he knew of a place only two days' sail away to the eastward where there was not only plenty of black-edge pearl-shell, but hawkbill turtle-shell as well.
Suddenly she looked up and seeing me, rose at once, and lifting the great turtle-shell limped wearily towards me with this borne before her. "Ha," says I, viewing her tear-wet cheeks as she came, "must ye weep, madam, must ye weep?" "May I not weep, Martin?" says she, head pitifully a-droop. "Come, let us go back, you look very pale, 'twas wrong of you to come so far!
So Cheri is still alone in the world, but when my ship comes home from sea and brings an additional hour to my day, and a few golden eagles to my purse, he is going to have his mate, eight young ones and all, and I shall buy him a new cage, a trifle smaller than Noah's ark, and a cask of canary-seed and a South Sea turtle-shell, and just put them in the cage and let them colonize.
There is also a considerable trade carried on in fine turtle-shell, which is polished in an exquisite manner by the patient natives. The Bahama sponges are not equal to those obtained in the Mediterranean. But they are marketable for certain uses, and Nassau exports half a million dollars' worth annually.
Outside, the negro washerwomen were busy washing clothes in large turtle-shell tubs, assisted, or hindered, by the 'washerwoman-bird, a kind of white crane, who appeared quite tame, playing about just like a kitten, pecking at the clothes or the women's feet, and then running away and hiding behind a tree.
The Poonga-Poonga volunteers stood with glistening eyes and grinning faces, naked save for their loin-cloths, and barbarously ornamented. Each wore a flat, turtle-shell ring suspended through his nose, and each carried a clay pipe in an ear-hole or thrust inside a beaded biceps armlet. A pair of magnificent boar tusks graced the chest of one.
"The Koreans learned this device from the Chinese and were the first to employ it in actual warfare. Their own history alleges that they improved upon the Chinese model by nailing sheet iron over the roofs and sides of the 'turtle-shell' craft and studding the whole surface with chevaux de frise, but Japanese annals indicate that in the great majority of cases timber alone was used.
This done, I went down to the lagoon and laved my arms and hands and face, cleansing myself as well as I might, and so, taking my well-laden turtle-shell under one arm and the reeking skin beneath the other, I set off. Now it was mid-day and the sun very hot, insomuch that the sweat poured from me, and more than once I must needs pause to moisten my hair to keep off the heat.
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