I Find It
Difficult To Bring Before The Reader The Thousand Curious Objects That Met
Us On Our Way.
The sullen crocodile basking in the sun, sank noiselessly;
a splash would be heard, and a four feet albicore would fling himself madly
into the air, striving vainly to elude the ominous black triangle that cut
the water like a knife close in his rear.
Small chance for the poor
fugitive, with the ravenous shark following silent and inexorable. We lay
on our oars and watched the result. The hunted fish doubles, springs
aloft, and dives down, but all in vain; the black fin is not to be thrown
off, double as he may. Anon the springs become more feeble, the pursuer's
tail partly appears as he pushes forward with redoubled vigour, a faint
splash is heard, the waters curl into an eddy, and the monster sinks
noiselessly to enjoy his breakfast in the cooler depths beneath. And now
we come to a sand bank running out some miles or so into the bay, and on
which the water is less than three fathoms. Here the surface is broken by
huge black objects, coming clumsily to the top, shooting out a jet of
spray, and again disappearing. We let the boat glide gently along until
she rests motionless above the bank, and stooping over the side with our
faces close to the water, and sheltered by our hands, we can peer down into
the placid depths, and see the huge animals grazing on the submarine
vegetation with which their favourite feeding-place is thickly overgrown.
But what animal is he talking about? the reader will ask. It is the dugong
('Halicore Australis'), or sea-cow, from whence is extracted an oil equal
to the cod-liver as regards its medicinal qualities, and far superior to it
in one great essential, for instead of a nauseous disagreeable flavour, it
tastes quite pleasantly. It frequents the whole of the north-eastern coast
of Australia, and when the qualities of the oil first became known, it was
eagerly sought after by invalids who could not overcome their repugnance to
the cod-liver nastiness. The fishermen, however, spoilt their own market,
for greed induced them to adulterate the new medicine with shark oil, and
all kinds of other abominations, so that the faculty were never quite
certain what they were pouring down the throats of their unhappy patients.
Thus the oil lost its good name, though I am convinced from personal
observation that fresh, pure dugong is quite equal, if not superior, in
nourishing qualities to cod-liver oil, and do not doubt that a time will
come when it will enter largely into the Pharmacopoeia. The animal itself
is so peculiar, that a brief description of it may not be here amiss. Its
favourite haunts are bays into which streams empty themselves, and where
the water is from two to five fathoms in depth, feeding on the 'Algae' of
the submerged banks, for which purpose the upper lip is very large, thick,
and as it turns down suddenly at right angles with the head, it much
resembles an elephant's trunk shorn off at the mouth.
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