After a voyage of 142 days from Salem, the _Glide_ reached Narai, one of the Fijis, where fresh provisions were taken aboard. A common musket worth only two or three dollars could be traded for a dozen large hogs and a pair of scissors or a jackknife was valued at a bunch of plantains or forty cocoanuts. When it came to exchanging trading goods for the native labor necessary to obtain the beche-le-mer--the principal article of trade in the islands--a common chisel made by the blacksmith on board from old hoop iron could be bartered for a day’s labor. To earn a chisel the islander must leave his hut early in the morning, sail fifteen or twenty miles to the reef and then work knee-deep in the water for six or eight hours gathering the beche-le-mer, a species of sea snail; after which he must carry his spoil to the ship--and all for a barrel-hoop chisel! The trading goods most esteemed in the Fijis at that time were iron tools, knives, scissors, whale’s teeth, beads and trinkets, but especially muskets, pistols and ammunition. The place selected for trade was reached about the middle of October, 1829, and after negotiating with the local chief, his people were employed in building three houses,--a “batter house,” a hundred feet long, thirty wide and twenty high, where the beche-le-mer were dried and cured after boiling; a “pot house,” open on all sides, in which the forty-gallon pots were placed to boil the sea snails; and a “trade house,” a building about fifteen feet long, ten wide and eight high, in which trading goods brought in the ship were stored and so made easily available for barter. The beche-le-mer when found on the reefs are about eight inches long and three inches thick. They are of a dark brown color, have a rough skin which is thickly covered with slime, and are easily taken. Exposure to the air has little effect upon them. After having been purchased by the trading master they are placed in a shallow pool made near the shore where the sea-water flows in at high tide and here the snails are cleaned of slime and then taken to the pot house and boiled about forty minutes. After drying they become hard and are then sent aboard the ship, packed in matting bags and stowed away. When properly cured beche-le-mer will remain in good condition for several years. It requires the Chinese palate to wholly appreciate the peculiar delicacy of its flavor when cooked and served as a table dainty and it was to the Chinese market in Manilla that the _Glide’s_ cargo was taken and sold.