Dugong

“ Rolling and lurching along, gambolling like good-humoured, contented children, the herd moves leisurely to and from favourite feeding-grounds, occasionally splashing mightily with powerful tails to make fountains of illuminated spray—great, unreflecting, sportful water-babes. Admiration is enhanced as one learns of the affection of the dugong for its young and its love for the companionship of its fellows. When one of a pair is killed, the other haunts the locality for days. ”

“ Another favourite article of food is the dugong (Halicore australis) of which a few are killed every year. Although it extends along the east coast of Australia from Moreton Bay to Cape York, it appears to be nowhere very common. About Cape York and Endeavour Strait, the dugong is most frequently seen during the rainy season, at which time it is said by the natives to bring forth its young. When one is observed feeding close inshore* chase is made after it in a canoe. ”

“ Some years the supplies are ample, at other seasons it scarcely pays to search for them. The dugong, called by the Malays duyong, is occasionally secured off the small islands in this [283] bay; there is a famous fisherman in Sarawak, named Pa Sipi, who is expert in all accomplishments appertaining to his craft, and I have heard the natives say that when a duyong is seen, he used cautiously to approach it, and being always the foremost man, he hurled his fishing spear at it, and very shortly after, if he were obliged to let go his hold of the weapon, the animal would rise again to the surface. ”

“ The animals are then tracked up, and strong nets, presenting a wall specified in one instance as fourteen feet high and a hundred and fifty yards long, are placed so as to intercept them as they go browsing up to their feeding-grounds. The dugong, in happy innocence, eats greedily of the succulent growths, clearing its way in the most workmanlike manner, when it is suddenly stopped by this strange barrier. ”

“ Doubtless, the dugong, attacked by some powerful animal, after having released the dog, was fighting on its own account. But it did not last long. The water became red with blood, and the body of the dugong, emerging from the sheet of scarlet which spread around, soon stranded on a little beach at the south angle of the lake. The colonists ran towards it. The dugong was dead. It was an enormous animal, fifteen or sixteen feet long, and must have weighed from three to four thousand pounds. ”

“ In the spring months the males do battle for partners, and the young are born towards the end of the year. Like the Rhytina, the Dugong shows intense maternal affection, for if the young be taken, the mother suffers herself to be speared in following her offspring. In its strange bristly-clad muzzle the Dugong resembles its congeners, but its skull and dentition are singular. Thus, the fore or premaxillary region of the upper jaw is elongated, sharply crooked downwards, and overlaps the very deep lower jaw, which is similarly down-bent. ”

“ Occasionally a dugong or a big fish, like a whale, is stranded during a gale, and this is indeed a red-letter day for the fortunate tribe upon whose territory the find was made.
Birds of every description are hunted with stone, stick, or spear. It is astounding how adroitly an aboriginal can project the light reed spears; to fell a dove at a distance of from forty to fifty paces is child’s play for an experienced thrower. ”

“ Blacks harpoon dugong as they do turtle, but the sport demands greater patience and dexterity, for the dugong is a wary animal and shy, to be approached only with the exercise of artful caution. An inadvertent splash of the paddle or a miss with the harpoon, and the game is away with a torpedo-like swirl. To be successful in the sport the black must be familiar with the life-history of the creature to a certain extent—understanding its peregrinations and the reason for them—the strength and trend of currents and the locality of favourite feeding-grounds. ”

“ Being a remarkably timid creature, it takes fright, loses its presence of mind, and gets hopelessly entangled. "Now and then a dugong is found wrapped round as with the folds of a hammock, and the net has to be cut away piecemeal. As often as not, the dugongs thus drown themselves by frantic efforts to escape, but where a partial entanglement permits them to follow their instinct and come to the surface, they are taken alive. ”

“ The name given to the Dugong by the aborigines is Young-un. The flesh is greedily eaten and much sought for by them; and when they have been successful in procuring one or two, which occasionally happens, they gorge themselves in a most unseemly manner, and grease themselves all over with the fat and oil until they glisten in the sun like a roll of butter in the dog-days. ”

“ Away swims the dugong, rising and diving, vainly endeavouring to rid itself of the painful dart. When the ungainly brute has gone to the length of its tether and then doubled, the slack rope is hauled in, and so for a short time it is “played” as a fisherman plays a salmon. Some of the crew now dive into the water, and following the struggling dugong in its movements of ascent and descent, tie a rope round its tail, by means of which it is towed to the boat. The poor beast is, however, still alive, so by main force it is held up by the tail, head downwards in the water, until it is suffocated. ”

“ A full-grown dugong yields from 10 to 12 gallons of oil, and this forms in cold weather a thick mass, and requires to be melted before a fire previous to being used. The flesh of the Australian dugong is easy of digestion, the muscular fibre when fresh resembling beef, and when salted having the flavour of bacon. In the earliest Australian dugong-fishery natives were employed to harpoon these animals, which soon, however, became too wary to allow themselves to be approached near enough for this purpose, and the harpoon was abandoned for the net. ”

“ This dugong, which also bears the name of the halicore, closely resembles the manatee; its oblong body terminated in a lengthened tail, and its lateral fins in perfect fingers. Its difference from the manatee consisted in its upper jaw, which was armed with two long and pointed teeth which formed on each side diverging tusks.
This dugong which Ned Land was preparing to attack was of colossal dimensions; it was more than seven yards long. It did not move, and seemed to be sleeping on the waves, which circumstance made it easier to capture. ”

“ When fully grown the dugong is from eight to ten feet in length, but it sometimes attains to as much as twelve feet. The animals gather in herds of from half a dozen to forty and swim about together. The females, which are more numerous than the males, cry like human beings when suckling their babies. ”

“ A species of dugong (Halicore hemprichii) is the animal that has been selected as the Badger of the Scriptures. It is one of the marine mammalia, and always lives near the shore, where it can find the various algæ on which it feeds. It is a gregarious animal, and, as it frequently ascends rivers for some distance, it may be captured in sufficient numbers to make both its flesh and skin useful. ”

“ They go in herds, are devoted to their mates and their young, and the mother tucks her babe to her breast with her fin. The dugong may be more porpoise-like than, seal-like as its skin smooth. Besides the fore-flippers it has atrophied hind ones—no dorsal fin. The head has a rounded muzzle, and the male has projecting tusks. ”

“ The natives would occasionally put their hands on my tomahawk or harpoon, and never ceased to wonder why the metal was so cold.
Whenever I went out after dugong, accompanied by Yamba (she was ever with me) , the blacks invariably came down in crowds to watch the operation from the beach.
But, you will ask, what did I want with dugong, when I had so much other food at hand? Well my idea was to lay in a great store of dried provisions against the time when I should be ready to start for civilisation in my boat. I built a special shed of boughs, in which I conducted my curing operations ”

“ At present there are two dugong-fishing establishments in Queensland, both on the east coast, but they are not managed with sufficient energy, and the result is that cod-liver oil is used more extensively than dugong oil. The fact that the animals move from one place to another, and have to be followed by the fishermen, makes the capture of the dugong very difficult. The fishing is carried on mainly by very strong nets, in which the animals are caught when they return, with the ebb-tide, from their pasture grounds on the shoals to deep water. ”

“ The dugong's flippers, to which we also find a superficial resemblance in those of the whale, show no traces of external nails: in those of the manatees, which show projecting nails, there is a considerable power of free movement (the hands being, in fact, used in manipulating the food) , which is not the {328}case in the limbs of the whale. The body of the dugong is almost smooth, though there are bristles in the region of the mouth: that of the manatees is studded with short hairs. The male dugong has two large tusks: in neither sex of the manatees are such tusks developed. ”

“ In size the full-grown male has never, we believe, been found more than eighteen or twenty feet long; but those commonly taken are much less than this. The food of the dugong consists chiefly of marine vegetables, which it finds at the bottom of inlets, in comparatively shallow water, where it is easily captured. ”

“ The interior was perhaps twenty feet square and ten feet high, with a small porch in which my fire was kept constantly burning. When we had captured a dugong the blacks would come rushing into the sea to meet us and drag our craft ashore, delighted at the prospect of a great feast. The only part of the dugong I preserved was the belly, which I cut up into strips and dried.
The blacks never allowed their fires to go out, and whenever they moved their camping-ground, the women-folk always took with them their smouldering fire-sticks, with which they can kindle a blaze in a few minutes. ”

“ The only known species is the Halicore Dugong. These animals live in societies, in shallow bays near the mouths of rivers, and in narrow arms of the sea where the depth is only two or three fathoms. In such situations they find abundance of sea-weed, which seems to constitute their only nutriment, and which they tear from the rocks by means of their flexible but powerful and fleshy lips. In the Sunda Isles Dugongs were formerly numerous, but their flesh is esteemed a dainty, and the species is now becoming scarce. ”

“ As to the flesh of the dugong, it would undoubtedly furnish excellent food, as in certain portions of the Malay archipelago it is reserved for the table of the native princes. But it was Neb’s affair to look after that.
Just now, Cyrus Smith was thinking of other things. The incident of the day before was constantly presenting itself. He wanted to solve the mystery of that unseen combat, and to know what congener of the mastodons or other marine monster had given the dugong this strange wound. ”

“ The manner in which the natives catch the dugong shows more thought and reflection than we would expect from savages so low in the scale of development as the Australian aborigines. The fact that the black man, lazy as he is by nature, will submit to all the toil necessary to capture the animal is proof of the great value he puts upon its flesh and fat. ”

“ Before I had actual optical evidence I could scarcely credit the statement that this was the only weapon the natives employed. Still, it must be remembered that the harpoon is only used to secure the animal; death invariably ensues by suffocation. One day during my visit it happened that two boats went out, and several darts were broken without capturing a single dugong; in the olden days of wooden darts this probably would often happen.
Formerly dugong were harpooned from canoes, or from a bamboo platform (nēĕt) erected on the reef. ”

“ Coral gardens—gardens of the sea nymphs, wherein fancy feigns cool, shy, chaste faces and pliant forms half-revealed among gently swaying robes; a company of porpoise, a herd of dugong; turtle, queer and familiar fish, occasionally the spouting of a great whale, and always the company of swift and graceful birds. Sometimes the whole expansive ocean is as calm as it can only be in the tropics and bordered by the Barrier Reef—a shield of shimmering silver from which the islands stand out as turquoise bosses. ”

“ Land that danger isn’t to be feared. His eye is sharp, his arm is sure. If I recommend that he aim carefully at this dugong, it’s because the animal is justly regarded as fine game, and I know Mr. Land doesn’t despise a choice morsel.”
“Aha!” the Canadian put in. “This beast offers the added luxury of being good to eat?”
“Yes, Mr. Land. Its flesh is actual red meat, highly prized, and set aside throughout Malaysia for the tables of aristocrats. Accordingly, this excellent animal has been hunted so bloodthirstily that, like its manatee relatives, it has become more and more scarce.” ”

“ Nevertheless, although the dugong is by nature mild-mannered, and innocent of the wiles by which a Greenland whale sends a boat spinning into the air with all bands, the men prefer to give the netted individual a wide berth. ”

“ During the winter months they are more frequently met with at sea, or outside the large bays. Their feeding grounds vary from four to ten feet at high water.
"Harpooning is at present the only mode of procuring the Dugong. The aborigines are very expert in the use of the instrument, and the quickness of their sight renders them superior to Europeans for such service ”