When the young ones are fledged, the nests are separated from the rock, to which they were attached by a secretion peculiar to the bird.
Soup flavoured with these nests is to the Chinese gourmand what green turtle is to the alderman. Both are expensive; I never had the courage to ascertain the price of real turtle, but I know that the nests fetch as much as £7 per pound, or, as each weighs about half an ounce, nearly 5s. apiece.
And thus it comes about that this otherwise valueless rock rents for one thousand rupees per annum; and a junk annually sails for China with its precious freight.
We had to keep clear of the rock, so that I had on that occasion no chance of examining the birds individually. They are little more than four inches in length, while their expanse of wing is nearly three times as much; on the back they are dark brown, which passes to lighter shades underneath. In ornithological parlance they have been christened Collocatia Esculenta. The fact that they are not scared away from the place by the men and boys employed in appropriating their nests, is presumably due to the abstinence of the natives in holding their hand until the young are on the wing.
Not long after passing the rock, we anchored opposite the military station of Mergui, now all alive with excitement. The smoke of the steamer had been seen from afar, and the residents were aware that it brought news—good to some, bad to others—from the dear ones at home.
The scene, as we let go the anchor, was striking in the extreme, and transferred to canvas would have found favour in the eyes of the most critical scenic painter of the modern school. In the foreground, the afore-mentioned rock, rising sheer out of the cerulean blue, that sent back the rays of an almost perpendicular sun, while a large opening through the rock resembled an irregular archway. The station of Mergui on elevated ground close to the sea, and backed by a primeval forest, was on the left; while to the right, the emerald isles dotted the sea southward.
Although we arrived somewhat early in the afternoon, certain adventurous spirits came off at once, protected with pith hats and Burmese umbrellas, and were on deck as soon as the anchor held and the gangway had been lowered.
Very different from their apathetic brother officers at Tavoy, they came off in quick succession; the captain was besieged, and bore the ordeal bravely as usual, with a kind word for everyone, though discriminating withal. They buzzed round him like bees, after the manner of mankind in general, where the nectar is mostly stored, though thirsting in this case for news.
Withdrawing from the group, I looked over the stern into the blue water, which was clear as crystal, and saw hundreds of fish gathering about the keel, darting hither and thither, and glistening with all the colours of the rainbow as the rays of light fell upon them at different angles. The smaller ones would get out of the way of the larger; seniores priores is the rule among the inhabitants of the deep. Absorbed in the contemplation of these creatures, that have ever interested me above all others, and wondering at the productiveness of these warm seas, and at the survival of a species always at war with each other, I did not at first notice that the captain was speaking to me.
He wanted to introduce me to one of the residents, whose name and face were equally familiar to me, and who turned out to be an old fellow-student, who had joined the Madras army and had been shunted with part of his regiment to this out-of-the-way place.