It was during the first English forays to northern Australia that the presence of South-East Asian mariners along the coast of Arnhem Land became known to the English colony in New South Wales. At first the role of these visitors to the north Australian coast, predominantly from the Indonesian port of Makassar in southern Sulawesi, was poorly understood. In the early 19th century the English administration considered establishing a trading entrepot for the fledging colonies in Australia at the Victoria Settlement (1838-49) on the Cobourg Peninsula to emulate the success of the emerging port of Singapore with Asian trade and commerce. A number of visitors to the settlement noted that the commercial interest of the Indonesian fleets was focused primarily on the harvesting of Holothuria - otherwise known as sea slugs, teripang (Malay), trepang (indigenous Australians) and beche-de-mer.
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