"Another little trick they've got is to sail—almost into the wind, mind you, but still sail—towing a diver along the bottom. It saves him having to walk and he covers more ground; but would you like to be in that suit? What happens if it catches on a bit of coral? ...
"I tell you what it is: they come over here on a three-years' indenture—it's the only way we allow them into Australian territory—and during that time they set out to make enough to keep 'em for the rest of their lives. And they do it—because they don't live long anyway after much fifty-two-fathom diving.
"Skin divers? We've got as good here in Torres Straits as any in the world! Twenty fathoms, and three minutes under water in the Paumotus? Well, that's not so bad, but we can beat it with a good abo (aboriginal). Come and see."
I did, and am forced to give the palm to Torres Straits. Our crew was a hotch-potch of mainland aboriginals—Islanders, Malays, and Filipinos—but it was the aboriginal who did the diving, and his performance was every whit as good as, and in some cases better than, that of the Paumotan. But with what different results! Instead of the cleanly pearl-shell, bèche-de-mer or trepang was brought to light, immense brown or black sea slugs that are gutted, impaled on a stick, and cured in a smoke-box amidships. When cooked they make a soup as nutritious and appetizing as turtle, and although China is by far the largest consumer of bèche-de-mer at the present time, it is rapidly gaining favour in Europe.
Pearl diver
The remaining important products of the Coral Sea and its coasts are trochas shell and sandal wood. The first of these is second only to mother-of-pearl for buttons, knife-handles, and what-not; and as for sandalwood, its uses are too familiar to call for mention here. But I am grateful to this externally unlovely but fragrant tree for taking me to the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria where it grows in profusion, for a stranger, more deserted land—saving always the Galapagos Islands—it would be difficult to find.
You may stand on these shores and look inland over thousands of miles of gently undulating and lightly timbered country, containing not a living soul with the exception of a few bands of ever-wandering and rapidly decreasing aboriginals. Cotton grows here to perfection. What would not grow? There are rivers that Western-American irrigators would smack their lips over, a light but assured rainfall, a rich loam soil, and millions of acres of pasture untouched save by wallaby and kangaroo. Yet we still cry out that the world is over-full.
Some day the entirely admirable bluff of "white Australia" will be called, and these territories of vast possibilities will be inundated by a people able and eager to develop them. It will be unpleasant, but then so are most penalties of degeneration and sloth in this cannibalistic old world of ours.
Back from "the Gulf," we celebrated a successful trip in the approved fashion at one of Thursday Island's numerous and well-known circular bars, presided over by a high priestess who, after three years in New Guinea, favoured the native style of coiffure.