The Vessel Was The 'Gabrielle D'Estonville', Of New
Caledonia, Commanded By Captain Jean Labonne, And Had Put Into Rockingham
Bay For Water, During A 'beche-De-Mer' Expedition.
Anything to equal the
filth of the fair 'Gabrielle', I never saw.
Her crew consisted of another
Frenchman besides the captain, and of seven or eight Kanakas, two of whom
had their wives on board. As perhaps this extraordinary trade is but
little known to the reader who has not resided in China, I will briefly
narrate how it is carried out.
From the neighbourhood of Torres Straits to about the Tropic of Capricorn,
extends, at a distance of fifty to a hundred miles from the shore, an
enormous bed of coral, named the Barrier Reef. There, untold millions of
minute insects are still noiselessly pursuing their toil, and raising fresh
structures from the depths of the ocean. Neither is this jagged belt -
though deadly to the rash mariner - without its uses. In the first place,
a clear channel is always found between it and the mainland, in which no
sea of any formidable dimensions can ever rise, and now that modern surveys
have accurately indicated where danger is to be found, this quiet channel
is of the greatest use to the vessels frequenting that portion of the
ocean, for they avoid the whole swell of the broad Pacific, which now
thunders against and breaks harmlessly on the huge coral wall, instead of
wasting its fury on the coast itself. In the second place on the Barrier
Reef is found the 'Holothuria', from which the 'beche-de-mer' is prepared.
It is a kind of sea-slug, averaging from one to over two feet in length,
and four to ten inches in girth.
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