A bottle of chutney or pickles was considered a specially valuable delicacy.

No money was ever given to the divers as wages whilst at sea, remuneration in kind being always given instead.

Each expedition would be absent perhaps six hours, and on its return each diver generally had between twenty and forty shells to hand over to me.

These I arranged in long rows on the deck, and allowed them to remain there all night.

Next day I cleaned them by scraping off the coral from the shells, and then opened them with an ordinary dinner-knife.