I
recognized the Javanese, a real serpent two and a half feet long, of a
livid colour underneath, and which might easily be mistaken for a conger
eel if it were not for the golden stripes on its side. In the genus
stromateus, whose bodies are very flat and oval, I saw some of the most
brilliant colours, carrying their dorsal fin like a scythe; an excellent
eating fish, which, dried and pickled, is known by the name of
Karawade; then some tranquebars, belonging to the genus apsiphoroides,
whose body is covered with a shell cuirass of eight longitudinal plates.
The heightening sun lit the mass of waters more and more. The soil
changed by degrees. To the fine sand succeeded a perfect causeway of
boulders, covered with a carpet of molluscs and zoophytes. Amongst the
specimens of these branches I noticed some placenae, with thin unequal
shells, a kind of ostracion peculiar to the Red Sea and the Indian
Ocean; some orange lucinae with rounded shells; rockfish three feet and
a half long, which raised themselves under the waves like hands ready
to seize one.
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