ion even as to its present state.* Since
that period it has certainly advanced a few paces in civilization; but in
other respects as to its natural and artificial productions it is
perfectly conformable to that account.

(*Footnote. Dampier volume 3 pages 157 to 179.)

Coepang is also known by its hospitable reception of Lieutenant (the late
Admiral) Bligh, after the mutiny of the Bounty's crew; and in 1802 it was
visited by Captain Flinders and Commodore Baudin: each of these
navigators have spoken warmly of the hospitality they experienced, and I
should be doing an injustice to Mr. Hazaart if I omitted a due
acknowledgment of his kind attention to our wants, and of the prompt
assistance he afforded us in our operations.

The presence of a fleet of Malay proas in the roads has been before
mentioned; it had just returned from an unsuccessful voyage on the south
coast of Timor in search of trepang. Dramah, the principal rajah of this
fleet, gave me the following information respecting the coast of New
Holland, which he had frequently visited in the command of a fleet that
annually frequents its shores.

The coast is called by them Marega, and has been known to them for many
years. A fleet to the number of 200* proas annually leaves Macassar for
this fishery; it sails in January during the westerly monsoon, and coasts
from island to island, until it reaches the North-East end of Timor, when
it steers South-East and South-South-East, which courses carry them to
the coast of New Holland; the body of the fleet then steers eastward,
leaving here and there a division of fifteen or sixteen proas, under the
command of an inferior rajah, who leads the fleet, and is always
implicitly obeyed. His proa is the only vessel that is provided with a
compass; it also has one or two swivels or small guns, and is perhaps
armed with muskets. Their provisions chiefly consist of rice and
coconuts; and their water, which during the westerly monsoon is easily
replenished on all parts of the coast, is carried in joints of bamboo.

(*Footnote. This number is perhaps very much exaggerated.)

The method of curing the trepang is thus described by Captain Flinders:
"They get the trepang by diving, in from three to eight fathoms water;
and where it is abundant, a man will bring up eight or ten at a time. The
mode of preserving it is this: the animal is split down on one side,
boiled, and pressed with a weight of stones; then stretched open by slip