Rough and
repulsive in appearance, and sluggish in habit, it has great power of
contractibility. It may assume a dumpy oval shape, and again drag out
its slow length until it resembles an attenuated German sausage, black
in colour. Its "face" may be obtruded and withdrawn at pleasure, or
rather will, for what creature could have pleasure in a face like a
ravelled mop.
Termed also trepang, sea cucumber, sea slug, cotton spinner, and known
scientifically as Holothuridae, no less than twenty varieties have been
described and are identified by popular and technical titles.
The "fish" are collected by black boys on the coral reefs--dived for,
picked up with spears from punts, or by hand in shallow water. Some
prefer to fish at high-water, for then the beche-de-mere are less shy,
and emerge from nooks in the rocks and coral, and in the limpid water on
the Barrier are readily seen at considerable depths. Then the boys dive
or dexterously secure the fish with their slender but tough spears, 4
fathoms long.
At the curing station (frequently on board the owner's schooner or
lugger) they are boiled, the fish supplying nearly all the water for
their own cooking.
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