s
of bamboo, dried in the sun, and afterwards in smoke, when it is fit to
be put away in bags, but requires frequent exposure to the sun. A
thousand trepang make a picol, of about 125 Dutch pounds; and 100 picols
are a cargo for a proa. It is carried to Timor and sold to the Chinese,
who meet them there; and when all the proas are assembled, the fleet
returns to Macassar. By Timor, seemed to be meant Timor-laoet; for when I
inquired concerning the English, Dutch, and Portuguese there, Pobasso
(the rajah in command) knew nothing of them: he had heard of Coepang, a
Dutch settlement, but said it was upon another island.

"There are two kinds of trepang. The black, called baatoo, is sold to the
Chinese for forty dollars the picol; the white, or gray, called koro, is
worth no more than twenty. The baatoo seems to be what we found upon the
coral reefs near the Northumberland Islands; and were a colony
established in Broad Sound or Shoalwater Bay it might perhaps derive
considerable advantage from the trepang. In the Gulf of Carpentaria we
did not observe any other than the gray slug."*

(*Footnote. Flinders volume 2 page 231.)

After having fished along the coast to the eastward until the westerly
monsoon breaks up, they return, and by the last day of May each detached
fleet leaves the coast without waiting to collect into one body. On their
return they steer North-West, which brings them to some part of Timor,
from whence they easily retrace their steps to Macassar, where the
Chinese traders meet them and purchase their cargoes. At this time (1818)
the value of the trepang was from forty to fifty dollars a picol;* so
that if each vessel returns with 100 picols of trepang, her cargo will be
worth 5000 dollars. Besides trepang, they trade in sharks' fins and
birds' nests, the latter being worth about 3000 dollars the picol.

(*Footnote. The value of the trepang in 1822 was much less; the price had
fallen to twenty-five dollars the picol.)

Dramah informed me that there are several rivers upon the coast, but that
in procuring water from them they are generally attacked by the Maregas,
whom they describe as treacherous and hostile, and by whom they are
frequently defeated; for the Indians attack them only when they are
unprepared. Their small canoes are frequently stolen from them, which
accounts for the one we captured from the natives of Goulburn Island.

A perpetual warfare exists between them, so that it would be a diff