The slug, when dried, is an ugly looking, dirty brown-coloured substance, very hard and rigid until softened by water and a very lengthened process of cookery, after which it becomes soft and mucilaginous.
Sometimes the slugs are found nearly two feet in length, but they are generally very much smaller, and perhaps about eight inches might be the usual size of those I have seen, their shape, as before mentioned, strongly resembling a cucumber. After being taken by the fisherman they are gutted, and then cured by exposure to the rays of the sun, after which they are smoked—over a fire, I believe—when the curing process is completed.
Shark fins, and the muscles of deer, are also exposed for sale by the Sooloo people to their Chinese visitors, by whom they are eagerly purchased for their countrymen’s cookery, both of these articles being very favourite delicacies. The first I have never tasted, although the flesh of a shark, if cut from some particular parts of his body, is far from being bad or unsavoury, if dressed by a China cook. As for the sinews of deer, they are very good, and occasionally met with at Manilla on the tables of Europeans who enjoy the reputation of having good palates.
Mother-of-pearl shell is so well known in Europe, that it is quite unnecessary to remark upon it, more than that those coming from Sooloo are by much the finest and largest shells of any hitherto known in commerce, being superior to those coming from the Persian Gulf.
Pearls are also brought from Sooloo, but they are seldom of any great size or value.
Gold is brought to Manilla from the same place, both in dust and in small bars, but not in any great quantity.
The ships engaged in this trade are generally absent about six months from Manilla, which they leave in March or April, and return to, after coasting about and disposing of all their cargoes, in September or October; no new voyages being undertaken by them until the following year.
During June and July, the most active trade is said to be carried on, as the number of traders annually frequenting the island from those in the neighbourhood, is much greater than at other times.
Besides the trade with Sooloo, a ship is absent nearly every year to Ternate, and other places of the Moluccas, where they usually manage to get their goods ashore, without paying the heavy duties which the Dutch have imposed upon them. The months of December or January being the usual time for starting for the Moluccas, these traders generally begin the busy season at Manilla by the purchase of grey shirtings and domestics, by adding which to goods very similar to those suited for Sooloo, they are enabled to have two strings to their bow, should the prices in the Moluccas be low; as they can, in that case, stand over to Sooloo in June, when they are usually able to dispose of their investments.