Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

It is of the black-edge variety, contains a large quantity of fine quality mother-of-pearl, and has a beautiful small pearl attached to the lining near the center of the shell. Though large, it is not full grown. It is probably twelve to fourteen years old and would continue to lay on mother-of-pearl and so grow thicker and heavier until sixteen to eighteen years of age, when the oyster would reach maturity. The Australian white shell at page 129 is a young shell—that is, it has not attained the full thickness and weight of a mature shell. The shells at pages 131 and 161 are from the coast of Venezuela; they measure 2-1/4 by 2-1/4 inches and weigh seven pennyweights each.

The common form of the pearl-bearing fresh-water mussel unio (nigger-head) is illustrated at page 146. This shell measures 3-3/4 by 2-3/4 inches and weighs 3-1/2 ounces. It is from the Middle West of the United States. In construction it resembles the meleagrina, the epidermis being dark, though not as rough as that of the oyster, and the lining white, showing slight iridescence around the lip-edge and to a greater degree on the adductor muscle scar. The mother-of-pearl under the epidermis at the thick or hinge end is quite iridescent, and the lines which make the color play are plainly discernible under the loup.

The largest and finest pearls, also the greatest number, are found usually in distorted shells. This has given rise to the idea that they are a symptom of disease in the fish, but having in mind the functions of the three zones of the creature's mantle by which they supply separately material for the epidermis, middle shell and lining, one may conceive that if, by some extraordinary cause, the secretions of one of these is largely withdrawn from the natural channel, the losing part of the shell would warp the normal growth of the others to its own dwarfage.

When the nacre grows to a pearl, contrary to the intent of nature, instead of a lining for the shell endeavoring to keep pace with the growing oyster, the full-growing exterior is distorted in accommodating itself to the undersized lining. In view of the fact that an oyster sometimes contains a large number of pearls (one shell in New Caledonia contained 256) the diversion of nacre sufficient to cover them, or to produce one large pearl, might reasonably be expected to result in a considerable distortion of the shell. It may also be that the displacement of the mantle, caused by the wrapping of itself about the growing pearl, interferes with the even deposit of shell material about the edges of the shell and so distorts it.

Because deformed shells are more fruitful of pearls some have advocated the practice of throwing perfectly-formed shells back into the sea unopened, but, inasmuch as the mother-of-pearl of the shells often exceeds in value the pearls found in them, this is not likely to happen. Few fisheries could be made to pay if they were fished for the pearls alone. In many of them the shells yield 90 per cent. of the total value and are in fact the sole incentive for the investment of the necessary capital.

Luckily for the world's supply of pearls, however, the disturbers of the mollusk which cause these gems by their intrusions appear to be more abundant in waters where the shell is valueless, the banks about Ceylon especially being infested with the cestodes which are commonly the nuclei of Indian pearls. It is interesting also to learn that Mr. James Hornell (inspector of the pearl banks) finds these worms in another stage in the file-fish, which frequents the banks to prey upon the oysters, and confidently expects to find them in the adult stage in the shark, which in turn devours the file-fish.

It is the opinion of Jameson of London and others, that the parasite which causes the formation of pearls in the mussels of Europe is frequently the larva of distomum somaterœ, from the eider-duck and scoter, and that the larva first inhabits Tapes, or the cockle, before getting into the mussel.

Generally the nuclei appear to be the bodies or eggs of minute parasites—distoma, filaria, bucephalus, etc., and they vary in different localities according to the animal life of the neighborhood. In the still parts of the river Elster, where water-mites (Limnochares anodontœ) were abundant, Kuchenmeister found that the mollusks contained more pearls.

METHODS OF FISHING

The beds of the marine shell-fish from which pearls are taken lie always under water. Unlike others which are sometimes left exposed by the tides, to be gathered by man without difficulty, the pearl oyster is never left uncovered by the sea. It is found usually on shoals some distance from shore, sometimes but five to seven feet from the surface; more frequently fifteen to forty feet deep, and often one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five and even one hundred and fifty feet deep.

Everywhere, then, man's quest for pearls is confronted by the heaving, restless waters of the sea, for the greater part of the year rough and turbulent, frequently lashed to furious racing by tropic tempests but through which he must in any case go to get them. In a few places where the beds lie in shallow inlets and sheltered bays they can be dredged, but almost universally the oysters are gathered by divers. During the greater part of the year, when storms rage, diving is very dangerous if not quite impossible; but when the song of the sea is hushed to low crooning, and the gentle roll of the waves does no more than playfully slap the boats in passing, then in the seas where men dive for pearls they gather to the harvest of gems.

There are two ways of diving—naked, and with dress. The former is the common method throughout the Orient and is practised to-day after the same manner that it was in the days of the Pharaohs and the Cæsars, for the primitive method survives with few variations wherever eastern people control the fisheries.

In the fishing season one sees now in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf and about Ceylon, the same scenes as they were enacted there before Rome was a city, or France a nation, or the Macedonians overran Egypt. Naked divers, diving into fifteen to forty feet of water, use few aids. They grease their bodies, put greased cotton in the ears and a forked stick, or tortoise-shell clip, upon the nostrils to compress them, hang a wide-mouthed wicker basket or net at the waist, and they are ready.

There are several methods of naked diving: head-first from a spring-board attached to the side of the boat, as the Malabar coast Hindus and some of the Egyptians do; swimming to the bottom, as practised in the deep waters of the South Sea; and dropping to the oyster bed with a stone. The latter is the most common way in Indian, Egyptian, and Arabian waters, especially where the banks lie in forty to fifty feet of water.

Standing on the spring-board a few seconds to fill his lungs, the head-first diver suddenly plunges overboard and passes smoothly and rapidly through the water straight to the shoal below. Gathering quickly as many oysters as possible while his breath lasts, he places them in the net at his waist, attaches them to a convenient rope hanging from the boat's side and shoots to the surface. There he recuperates by lazily floating about if the water is shallow, if deeper, by climbing back into the boat for his next plunge. If diving in pairs, one rests while his partner dives.

Expert divers who dive singly have an attendant, a manduck, who attends to the lines and looks out for his interests generally. The manduck drops a line with the oyster basket overboard and attaches to it another weighted with a forty to fifty pound stone. These are so fastened that they can be quickly released. The diver then drops into the water feet first and placing his foot in a loop in the line over the stone puts the basket on it, and releasing the lines, sinks to the bottom. Disengaging himself, he proceeds to fill his basket while the attendant pulls up the stone and adjusts it for the next descent. When ready to return he signals his attendant, and holding on to the line with the basket is drawn to the surface, occasionally accelerating his own return by climbing the rope hand over hand at the same time. He rests in the water by the boat's side until ready to dive again, making seven or eight descents before climbing into the boat for a longer rest and sun-bath.

The divers of India, Arabia and the Red Sea are natives of the Madras Presidency, descendants of Arab fishers at Jaffna in Ceylon, Arabs, and Egyptian Negroes. They travel long distances to the fisheries and there are many of them between the Red Sea and Ceylon. At the last fishing in the Gulf of Manaar there were about forty-five hundred. Their dress during the time of the fishing consists of a loin cloth only. They have many hereditary and class superstitions, chief of which is their faith in shark-charmers. While waiting for the fishing to begin they also seek to get from the fates an inkling of the luck which will attend them. One common method is by breaking a cocoanut on the diving stone; the more clean and even the break, the better the luck.

The mortality among divers at the fisheries is not great in Asiatic waters. Pneumonia is the greatest scourge, fatalities in diving being few. It is necessary however to select robust men for depths beyond forty feet; comparatively few can work without injurious effects below that.

Some curious mixtures of ancient days and present times, of the Pharaohs and infant industries, are seen. One may see a black slave diver in the Red Sea hanging over the edge of his boat taking observations through an old tin kerosene can with a bit of glass in one end of it. This he sinks a little way in the water and gazes through it below. Presently the can is discarded, over he goes and returns shortly with a few shells; while near by a clumsy monster emerges and a diver in dress climbs into his boat. This use of modern tin cans and glass is adopted in seas where the shells are scattered and is common to pearl-divers the world over.

The Moros have a method of fishing in very calm weather peculiar to themselves. They drop a three-prong catcher attached to a rattan rope upon the oyster bunches and so haul them up to the boat. This can only be done when the sea is perfectly still, as even a ripple would render a sight of the oysters impossible. Ordinarily they dive to any depth down to twenty fathoms.

Many attempts have been made to introduce dress-diving among the natives of the east but so far few have been successful. Results from experiments have not compared favorably with naked diving and so, with few exceptions, naked diving is still the rule in the east where natives control the fishings.

But of all, the Polynesians, both male and female, adhere most closely to the old way. Most of them will not even use a stone to assist the descent, and they probably reach greater depths than the naked divers of any other sea. Travellers report that, at a coral atoll in the Southern Pacific owned by the French government and known as Hikuereu, where the natives of Tahiti and other islands flock during the season to fish for pearls, the boys and girls and women are almost as expert as the men.

Whole families congregate here, remaining during the season housed in huts framed of light cocoanut palms roofed with leaves. These they bring with them, some coming several hundred miles. The shells are mostly in sixty to seventy feet of water; some however are brought from a depth of one hundred feet. It is reported that a boy, on an exhibition dive, remained under water for two minutes and forty seconds, going to a depth of a little over one hundred feet. He was in sight all the time, the water being so transparent that he could be seen on the bottom, leisurely selecting pieces of coral for the officers of the ship above. These divers hang in the water by one hand grasping the gunwale of the boat while they examine the bottom for oysters through a glass which they hold below the surface in the other hand.

When shells are sighted the glass is discarded, the lungs are filled several times and the air expelled slowly. Upon reaching a certain fit condition a long breath is taken until the lungs are inflated to their utmost capacity; the diver then suddenly lets go, sinks a few feet below the surface, turns quickly and head-first swims rapidly to the bottom.

Arriving there, he pulls himself along by grasping the coral branches and breaking the shells loose from their anchorage with his right hand, which is protected by a cloth wrapping, and stows them away in a cocoanut fibre basket slung over the shoulder. This done, he straightens himself and shoots to the surface with astonishing rapidity, seeming to leap up from the water as he arrives with almost sufficient impetus to carry him into the waiting canoe. In a few minutes he is ready to dive again. In some localities where divers were employed the women were preferred, not because they could do better work always, but one could depend on them more safely. This was true of the divers in Torres Straits between Queensland and New Guinea.

Before dress-diving was introduced these naked natives would dive into ten or twelve fathoms and bring up an oyster under each arm. The shells were large, weighing three to six pounds together and sometimes ten, but they contained few pearls and those were generally small. As they were brought up the oysters were searched for pearls and the fish used for food. The shells sold in Sydney then for eight to nine hundred dollars the ton. Years ago the women of Chile about the Bay of Concepcion claimed as a right the fishing for mussels. The men rowed them out to the beds and stuck long poles into the shoal below, down which the women would slide, returning with both hands full of mussels. The fishing was done from canoes, each holding one man and one woman. The women did not consider this a hardship but a privilege of which they were quite jealous, for they devoted the proceeds of their catch to the purchase of finery.

Wonderful stories are told of the great depths to which these naked divers go and the great length of time they can remain under water. Many of these tales are gross exaggerations,—yarns which have grown more wonderful with the telling, or the reports of careless or inexperienced observers. As a matter of fact at most of the fisheries, twenty to thirty feet is good diving, and from forty to fifty feet is the maximum depth. Sixty to eighty seconds is the average limit of time they remain under water. If one will try to hold the breath for sixty seconds, even while remaining perfectly still, it will be at once understood that to do so while moving and working rapidly under water is a great feat. Nevertheless there have been instances undoubtedly, where naked divers have gone to much greater depths and remained under for several minutes. Such cases are rare however and occur most frequently among the natives of the South Sea Islands, who, male and female, are expert divers from childhood and spend much of their lives in the water.

Visitors have claimed that natives of the Tongarewa Islands, in longitude one hundred and fifty-eight degrees W. and latitude nine degrees S., can do twenty to twenty-five fathoms and will even go deeper when tempted by the sight of a few oysters lying in a hole or depression near by. Going below twenty-five fathoms results almost invariably in a sort of paralysis. The diver comes up howling and incapable of motion and unless companions at once seize and rub him vigorously with salt water until circulation is restored, a process lasting sometimes many hours, he dives no more. If restored he will dive again next day, and such is their recklessness that the same temptation would lead him to take the risk again.

Monsters abound in these waters. Should the diver be attacked by a devil-fish, shark, or sword-fish, he does not use a knife, as blood would attract other devils of the sea and becloud the water to his own confusion. Instead he seeks to avoid his enemy, and if the troubler is a sword-fish, tries to find shelter among the rocks. If the fish departs quickly, he escapes; but the time of a live man one hundred feet under water is short and sometimes the sword-fish over-stays it.

Helmets have been used to a certain extent in all parts of the world. Many of them were clumsy affairs, abhorred by all native divers, and were a bad introduction to the "dress" used in the large operations of big fisheries such as those of Australia and the Pacific coast of this continent. In the seas about Australia, modern appliances are being rapidly introduced. The Australians use them if possible, wherever they fish. On their own coast all diving is now done in dress; but among some of the islands of the Pacific, where they are extending their interests, native prejudice is still able to hinder the use of it.

Probably the chief reason for the general use of the dress on the Australian coast so early was that the shallows were soon exhausted, and naked diving was not successful beyond a depth of fifty feet. With the dress, a diver can work at much greater depths, remain under water an hour or two, and work all the year round.

_Copyright, 1892, by The Century Company. _

NATIVE AUSTRALIAN PEARL-DIVERS]

In fisheries like those of Ceylon, where the banks are seldom over forty feet deep and well known, being fished over and over again at one season of the year only, at comparatively short intervals (four to six years), the necessity for dress-diving is less and the naked native diver will probably survive for many years although modern innovations are gradually creeping in even among the fisheries controlled by Orientals.

The dress consists of a rubber suit all in one piece, which the diver gets into through the neck; leaden-soled boots, corselet to which the helmet is screwed, and chest and back weights. The diver dresses and steps on to the ladder hanging over the boat's side. The air-pipe, life-line, and helmet are attached, the man at the air-pump is set to work, and last of all the face glass is screwed up.

A plunge, a splash, and he drops swiftly through the heaving billows to the quiet depths below, his life in the hands of the tender he has left in the boat. This man must feel the diver constantly by the life-line, keep him supplied with air and be ready for any of the emergencies always liable to arise. Only an alert man of good judgment and quick action should tend the life-line, though the most successful diver, a Japanese, on the Australian coast some years ago, had the best tender of that section in the person of his wife.

If it is the diver's first plunge, his ears and head will be racked with pain as he descends. This pain will leave him when he reaches bottom, but on his return to the surface he will find his nose and ears bleeding and will probably spit blood also. After this he will not experience pain in diving, but in common with nearly all divers will never be quite free from extreme irritability and bad temper while below; he will also have gained the diver's ability to blow smoke through the ears.

Diving is injurious to the health and, if persisted in, produces deafness and incipient paralysis. Few of the divers on the Australian coast now are aborigines. Their antipathy to the dress amounted in many cases to a superstition, so as the fishing was pushed out to deeper waters and the dress became a necessity, they were discarded with the old methods. It is said that in the old times diving had a peculiar effect upon the black-haired natives. By the end of the fishing season the color of their hair became yellow though the natural hue returned later.

With the dress, a diver can work comfortably at one hundred to a hundred and twenty-five feet, but men who know the fisheries doubt if that can be exceeded. Nor does it seem needful to go deeper, for in seas which have been explored at greater depths it is usually found that the bottom consists of ooze unsuitable for the life and growth of the oyster.

Beyond those inherent to the art of diving, either method has its peculiar difficulties after bottom is reached. In naked diving, especially at the shoals of Ceylon and Venezuela, where the shells are small and abundant, it is simply a question of gathering as many as possible while the breath lasts and looking out for the dangerous fishes indigenous to tropical waters.

Sharks are common in many of the pearl-oyster seas, but experienced divers do not fear them greatly, as the fish, formidable as it may appear, and dangerous as it is when it can come upon one unawares, is easily frightened. Many expert swimmers of the Indian and Pacific oceans do not hesitate to attack them in their own element. Usually vigorous splashing will frighten them away. The dress-divers of Australia scare them off by allowing a jet of air to escape. As the bubbles start for him, the man-eating monster shoots away from them as if terror-stricken.

The diamond-flounder of the Pacific and Indian oceans, a huge flat fish with a habit of seizing its prey between the side fins and crushing it, is more dangerous. If a dress-diver of experience sees one of these approaching, he is apt to shut off the air-escape of his helmet and signal to his tender that he is coming to the surface as fast as he can get there.

The rock-cod also is sometimes troublesome on the Australian coast. Occasionally he attains an enormous size. This fish lies hidden in submarine caves, his head protruding and his monstrous jaws yawning vertically wide like an entrance to the cave itself. But accidents from the denizens of the sea are comparatively few; the physical results of deep-sea diving are more to be dreaded, for paralysis hovers close to the thirty-fathom line.

Although dress-diving has the advantage over naked diving that it gives a supply of air to breathe while at work, it also entails dangers and difficulties from which the old method is free. An imperfect supply of air may cause the bursting of a blood-vessel. Fouling of the lines might not only cut off the air supply entirely, but prevent the man, anchored by his heavy dress under twenty fathoms of water more or less, from signalling the man at the life-line. As on dry land, there are holes and precipices at the bottom of the sea to be avoided.

In some seas there are swift currents and as the dress-diver remains under water for some time, instead of returning at once like his naked brother, he must keep moving with it, and as he moves, the boat must move in unison and his tender must keep the lines free. Both diver and tender must be skilful and alert to do this. Nor is it always easy in deep-sea diving to find the oysters. They lie in scattered bunches, often hidden by sponges, coral or other sea growths, their gray or moss-grown exteriors scarcely to be distinguished from the surroundings; if in mud, only an inch or so of the sharp lips of the two valves projecting above the surface are in evidence; while if in stooping to gather the shells he should fall, he is likely to shoot feet foremost to the surface.

Though dress-diving has heretofore been confined almost entirely to white men, the Japanese, Chinese, Malays, South Sea Islanders, and others in different places, are now being educated to it chiefly through an Australian fishery.

At the northwestern corner of Australia, a thousand miles from the nearest railroad and ten days from the nearest port, there are pearl fisheries where the climate is so hot that white men cannot be obtained for the work. Colored men are shipped there from Singapore to man the boats, the pearl-fishers giving a bond to the government of 100 pounds sterling for each man employed, as a guarantee that he will not go to other parts of the state. A fleet of about three hundred boats and fifteen hundred men are employed there, the supply station being at Broome township.

In all things, when once the improvements of science gain a foothold anywhere in the world, the whole earth succumbs eventually to their advantages, and so with diving; the habits and prejudices of thousands of years will be forced by commercial pressure to submit themselves to modern appliances, and the picturesque nakedness of the swarthy orient will soon be hidden under the ugly but useful dress of civilization.

HABITAT OF THE PEARL OYSTER

The Pearl Oyster is found in more or less abundance on the shoals and reefs about the shores of every land within a belt of the earth lying between 30 degrees north and south of the equator. Coral reefs and limestone foundations usually form the beds on which they propagate. Beyond these limits the abalone is found at Japan, on the California coast, Queen Charlotte's Island, the Cape, Australia, New Zealand, China, about the English Channel, and on the coast of France, where the shores are washed by equatorial currents. It exists also on the shores of India and the Canary Islands.

The largest and heaviest shells, which yield fine mother-of-pearl most abundantly are confined almost entirely to the Pacific Ocean within twenty degrees south of the equator. The best white shells come from the northern shores of Australia and the Aroo islands. The best black shells are found about Tahiti, the Gambier Islands, and the Tuamotu Archipelago. Of the big yellow variety, the best are obtained in the Merguian Archipelago and Dutch Indies. The shells of this district at Ceram, Batjan, and elsewhere, vary somewhat but the bulk of them are yellow.

Beginning with the east coast of Africa, the pearl oyster is found in the Red Sea, where it has been fished for ages. The shell here is of medium size and weight; much larger than those of Venezuela, Ceylon, or the Persian Gulf and smaller than the shells of the Pacific. The mother-of-pearl is not of the finest quality and is used now for inferior work only. It was more used formerly but since the fresh-water unio shell of the United States came into the market, it has displaced to a great degree the Egyptian and Panama shells. The inner edge of the Red Sea shell is of a greenish-gray color.

South of the Red Sea, on the East of the African coast, pearl oysters are found in a number of places between Zanzibar and Inhambane, particularly at the Bazaruto Islands, but nowhere in sufficient abundance to develop the fishing for them into a regular industry. Good mother-of-pearl is abundant on the German East African coast, but the oysters carry few pearls.

Travelling east, they are next found in large numbers in that arm of the Arabian Sea known as the Persian Gulf. Here they have existed for many centuries. The mollusk is of the smaller species and the shells are known in the market as Lingahs, from the name of the centre of the pearl trade in this district. The shells are of no commercial importance.

After these come the ancient fisheries of India, the most prolific in the world. The oysters here are smaller than those of the Arabian Sea and the shells are of no value, but they mature rapidly and yield great quantities of pearls. Myriads of them cover the shoals and banks between the coast of India, at the South-eastern point, and Ceylon, and as the beds are under government supervision, they cannot be destroyed by the reckless fishing of immature oysters.

Crossing the Bay of Bengal and the Malay Peninsula, between longitudes 100 and 120 degrees E., there are pearl oysters on the coasts of China, the Merguian Archipelago and western Australia. Between longitudes 120 degrees E. and 150 degrees E., these mollusks flourish on many coasts, including those of Japan, the Sulu Archipelago, the Dutch Indies, the Spice Islands, the Banda Islands, the Aroo Islands, New Guinea and northern Australia.

The Australian shells are large and the lining is white and fine. As shell fisheries they are the largest in the world and although the value of the pearls found is small compared with the amount realized from the sale of the shells it is considerable and growing. The Aroo shells are white like the Australian. Those from the Banda Islands are a smaller black-edge shell. Most of the others like the Manila shell of the Sulu Islands, are yellow.

At longitude 165 degrees E. the fisheries of New Caledonia are becoming notable for the number of fine fancy colored pearls found there. Both avicula margaritifera and meleagrina margaritifera are taken off the west coast.

In the waters of the Fiji Islands, longitude 180 degrees E. pearl oysters of the black-edge shell variety similar to the Bandas but a little larger are fairly abundant.

Fine shells, often containing very beautiful pearls, are taken off the coasts of Tahiti, Gambier, and throughout the Tuamotu Archipelago, lying between longitudes 130 degrees W. and 150 degrees W. The shells are of the black-edge type, large and heavy. The nacre is thick and has a particularly mellow luster; throughout this section both shells and pearls rank among the best.

All over the South Sea, pearl oysters are found about the islands and in the lagoons within the atolls which stud it, but in quantities too small in many places to induce capital to establish fisheries. Fishing for them is confined therefore to native divers who are rewarded by the occasional find of a few pearls, which often they sell at ridiculous prices to the stray traders who may chance to come their way.

This eastward journey now brings us to the Pacific coast of the American continent. Here the pearl-bearing mollusk is found on the shores of Lower California, about the Islands of the Gulf of California, at various points on the Mexican coast-line south to Acapulco and at Panama. They exist also on the coast of Ecuador but of late years fishing has not proved remunerative and it is now carried on in a desultory way only. They are found also on the western coast of Nicaragua.

The Mexican shells known as Panama shell or bullock shell have a dark, dirty, greenish rim and are much less valuable than the white or black shell. Similarly, dark, slaty-colored pearls are known as Panamas because many pearls taken on this coast are of that character. This color tendency however often results more advantageously as many of the pearls are sufficiently dark to be classed as fancy and some beautiful black and red pearls are found in these waters. Panama pearls also have the reputation of being softer than others. There are pearl oysters also on the Peruvian coast but this section has not yet been fished.

On the Atlantic side of America pearl oysters are abundant in the Gulf of Campeche and on the shoals about the islands and shores of Venezuela. The shells of Central America are similar to the Panamas only more yellow, while those of Venezuela are small and valueless. Between the east coast of America and the Red Sea are no fisheries save at Haiti, for no discoveries of any importance have been made on the western coast of Africa.

Consideration of these homes of the pearl oyster shows it to be a tropical fish and that it attains greater dimensions in the Pacific Ocean and near the equator than elsewhere. Beyond 30 degrees north it is found only at two points, the western shore of America and on the Japanese coast. These shores are washed by equatorial currents. The small varieties of the Indian seas and Venezuela, mature rapidly in four to six years, and if not taken they die out after the seventh year. The meleagrina of the Pacific however, though it attains its full size in six to eight years, continues to lay on shell-nacre up to twelve and even twenty years. A shell which is of good size but comparatively thin is called by the dealers in mother-of-pearl a "young shell." The Australian pictured at page 129 is such an one. The Tuamotu at page 127 is not full grown but well along in years, probably fourteen to sixteen years old.

Of the sea mollusks yielding formations which, though not true pearls, are so called, (Strombus gigas), is a native of the West Indies. Another, a gasteropod, the ear-shell (Haliotis) known in the United States as the abalone, is found on the coasts of California, Japan, the English Channel Islands and elsewhere. The Californians are divided into three classes, the blue backs, about six inches long, and green and red-ears, which are half as large again. Pinnas yielding black seed-pearls are found south of the Island of Mafia on the east coast of Africa. On the banks and shoals between Mafia and Zanzibar is a red mussel from which white pearls are taken.

The fresh-water pearl-bearing mussel, the unio, unlike the sea oyster is most abundant north of 30 degrees N. In China and the Hawaiian Island Oahu it is found a little to the south of 30 degrees N., and it has been discovered lately in Southern Rhodesia a little north of 30 degrees S., but the countries and streams in which the unio is plentiful and where it yields the most pearls lie within latitudes 30 degrees N. and 60 degrees N. They have been taken from the streams of Great Britain since the times when the Romans had a colony here. They exist in Bohemia, Saxony, Bavaria, Lapland, Canada, Labrador and in great quantities in the United States.

PEARL FISHERIES

The pearl fisheries of the Red Sea are at Lohia. At the lower end of the Red Sea, at Massawa on the African side, and at Lohia on the Arabian side, are a number of small barren islands; the banks lie in shallow water between them. The industry is financed by merchants, principally natives of Bombay, India, who in partnership with the Bedouin boat-owners, control the fishing. The Bedouin captain takes with him a few Arabs to man the boat and a number of black slaves as divers. The shells have a market value for mother-of-pearl but the quality is inferior. They have a greenish-gray edge and are fairly heavy and formerly they were much in demand.

Of late years the fresh-water unio shells have replaced them to a certain extent for cheap material but the shells are yet about ninety per cent. of the value of the fishings. Returns show exports of pearls averaging one hundred thousand dollars per annum but as a large number go direct to Bombay and are not reported, this does not fairly represent the extent of the industry.

The beds vary in depth, thirty to forty feet being the maximum depth fished. Naked native diving is the rule, but the Italian government has lately farmed out concessions at Dahlak and Farsan where they are experimenting with helmets. The fishing season is from the beginning of March to the end of May.

The arm of the Arabian sea lying between Arabia and Persia known as the Persian Gulf, has always been rich in pearl oysters and is a prolific source of supply to-day. These banks are fished chiefly for the pearls. The shell, though larger than the Ceylon, is of the "Lingah" class as it is called, and is of little value for mother-of-pearl.

Though pearl oysters are found all along the coast of Arabia, the most productive shoals are between the Islands of Halool and Katar. These shoals commence at the Island of Bahrein immediately off the Arab coast near the centre of the gulf and continue east and south along the district of Katar for nearly two hundred miles after which the banks are lost in deep water. The chief centre of the pearl trade is Lingah, hence the name given to the shells of this district. Most of the pearls go to Bombay and are known as Bombay pearls, many of them having a distinctly yellow tint. The whitest and finest go to Bagdad and eventually the best go to Europe. India takes the irregular ones and China gets the seed-pearls.

The principal banks are at Bahrein. This island is the most important one of a group situated in an indentation of the Arabian coast and is about seventy miles long and twenty-five broad.

Small boats carrying from five to fifteen men fish the shallows near the coast, but larger boats, manned by from twenty to fifty men, put out for the banks further from shore into deep water. These remain out during the entire season coming into port once or twice only for supplies. The owners of the boats are generally poor. They depend upon the dealers for advances at the beginning of the season for supplies, and many of them are therefore practically in a state of bondage.

When the deep-water boats reach the fishing grounds, half the crew is selected for diving. The diver uses a small braided mat basket as a receptacle for the shells and has a long line attached to him by which he can signal to the man in the boat who manages it. There is a man to each diver's line. Except for the short intervals at the surface necessary for air and rest, the divers remain in the water for hours. The oyster-beds vary in depth from six to eighteen feet in the shallows, to forty feet at the banks.

The duration of the fishing season depends on the temperature of the water. It lasts usually through July, August, and September, though some of the larger boats remain out from the end of June until the beginning of October.

The pearls are sold by weight, sales being made sometimes while at sea and a duty equalling about twenty per cent. is levied on the spot. A large number of Hindu traders come during the season to buy, returning to India at the close as they have done for centuries.

No exact statistics of the output of these fisheries are to be had but the yield is said to average well; some authorities placing the value of the fisheries of the entire district in the sixties at nearly two millions of dollars per annum, and the number of boats engaged at 4,000 to 5,000.

_Copyright, 1906, by The Century Company. _

EAST INDIAN PEARL-DIVERS RESTING]

As ancient as those of the Arabian sea and even more important are the pearl fisheries of India. These are also fished for the pearls, the shells of these waters being smaller than those of the Persian Gulf and valueless for mother-of-pearl. The pearls however average whiter than those of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Although equally fine pearls are found in other waters the Ceylon, or Madras pearls as they are called, have long been esteemed the best because of their good average color and quality. These banks are situated in the Gulf of Manaar between the southern point of India and the island of Ceylon.

On the Madras (India) side the banks are off Tinnevalli and Madura at Tuticorin. The Indian revenue realized a profit of £13,000 from a fishing here in 1822, and £10,000 from another in 1830. Examinations showed that there were not sufficient oysters for profitable fishing after that until 1860, when the government netted £20,000, and a fishing the following year, 1861, was equally successful. The banks failed in 1862 and there was no fishery until 1874. Pollution of the water from the Indian shores has been detrimental to these banks and they are now of little importance.

On the Ceylon side, the banks lie six to eight miles off the west shore and a little south of the island of Manaar. Fishing has been an industry from early times before history began. There are records of these fisheries under the kings of Kandy and later by the Portuguese after they took possession of Ceylon about 1505, to 1655 when the island passed into the hands of the Dutch. In old times they were called the fisheries of Aripo after a fort on the coast. Not until the English gained control were the fisheries so managed that definite knowledge of the results could be obtained.

After the Dutch gave way to the English, until 1903, these fisheries had yielded a net income to the government of over £1,000,000. This covered a period of over one hundred years, as the British occupied Ceylon in 1796. In the early years of this period and prior to that, the fishings, or rights to fish, were sold to the highest bidders, usually Hindu merchants. In 1796 the fishing brought £60,000. The year after the British took possession, 1797, it realized £110,000 that amount having been paid by Candappa Chetty, a native of Jaffna for the fishery right, and for that of 1798, the same renter paid £140,000.

These fishings, which were prolonged, so exhausted the banks that the fishery of 1799 yielded but £30,000. From 1799 to 1802 the yearly product ranged from £12,000 to £55,000. In 1804 they were leased for £120,000 but from that time on declined so that in 1828 they brought only £30,612. There were no fishings from 1820 to 1827, nor in 1834 and after 1837, until 1855. The supply failed in 1864 and for several succeeding years, and again for a decade, after five successful fishings from 1887 to 1891. The average yearly profit up to 1891 was about £34,000.

The Ceylon and Madras fisheries are now in charge of a government officer, who spends a part of each year inspecting the various banks so as to be informed as to the whereabouts of mature oysters, and the location and progress of the young and immature. They keep a record of their condition at different periods, and regulate the fisheries by permitting fishing only when they consider the banks to be ripe for it.

The oysters mature in from four to six years so that ordinarily a bank may be fished once in that period, but it sometimes happens that the young oysters are swept away by violent storms or crowded out by natural enemies. In 1901 the Ceylon banks were found to be in a bad way, there were plenty of young oysters but none full-grown. The government officers could not account for the condition, and in response to a report of the facts the government sent Prof. W. A. Herdman to Ceylon in 1902. He examined the whole of the bottom of the Gulf of Manaar and discovered banks on which were full-grown oysters, so that a fishing was fixed for the 23rd of February 1903. Weather prevented commencement until the second of March, when fishing began and lasted forty-two working days until April the fourteenth. The fishings take place in March and April because the sea is usually calm at that period.

The banks lie in five to ten fathoms over a shallow area nearly fifty miles long by twenty miles broad, opposite Aripo. A steep declivity on the western edge gives the sea a depth of one hundred fathoms in a few miles. In the centre of the southern part of the Gulf of Manaar, west of the Chilaw pearl-banks, the sea is one to two thousand fathoms deep.

Of all the paars, or oyster-beds (paar means rock or hard bottom) the Periya paar is the largest. It is about eleven nautical miles long and from one to two miles broad. Situated in about five to ten fathoms close to the top of the western slope of the shallows, and running north and south about twenty miles from land, it is exposed to the southwest monsoon which runs up toward the Bay of Bengal for about six months of the year. The natives call this the mother-paar, believing that the young oysters are carried from it to the other paars, which are thus stocked at its expense.

Between 1880 and 1902 twenty-one examinations showed that the Periya paar had been naturally stocked eleven times with enormous quantities of young oysters, which as regularly disappeared before they were old enough to yield a fishing. The most reliable paars are in the Cheval district and it is probable that the government, acting on the suggestion of Prof. Herdman, will hereafter dredge the breeding Periya paar of its young oysters and plant them where they will be able to mature. It is estimated that many millions of millions of oysters have been lost from this paar during the last twenty-five years.

A fishing is not only a matter of commercial importance, but of wide-spread interest among the natives of Ceylon and India. The romance of the situation, the hope of gain, the great gathering of people from many and far-off countries, the opportunities for barter, the possibilities of securing priceless gems for little, and for making money quickly, all appeal to the oriental mind.

For this they will endure the discomforts of long and painful journeys and the dangers of crowded camp life with a recklessness that contrasts curiously with the wild panics into which they are sometimes thrown, as for instance in 1889, when the Ceylon fishing collapsed on account of cholera. In a few hours a fleet of 200 boats disappeared, the camp was burned, and the multitude gone.

Great precautions are taken by the government officials in every direction. When they have decided that there are banks in condition to be fished, notice of a fishing is advertised. The following notification of the fishery for 1904 is an illustration.

"Government Notification.

Pearl fishery of 1904.

Notice is hereby given that a pearl fishery will take place at Marichchikaddi, in the Island of Ceylon, on or about March 14, 1904.

1. The bank to be fished is the southwest Cheval Paar which is estimated to contain 13,000,000 oysters.

2. It is notified that the first day's fishing will take place on the first favorable day after March 13.

3. Marichchikaddi is on the main land, eight miles by sea south of Sillavaturai and supplies of good water and provisions can be obtained there.

4. The fishery will be conducted on account of the Government, and the oysters put up for sale in such lots as may be deemed expedient.

5. The arrangements of the fishery will be the same as have been usual on similar occasions. Persons attending the fishery camp from India will be permitted to travel to Ceylon by either of the following routes: (1) Tuticorin to Colombo or (2) Paumben to Marichchikaddi and by no other. Arrangements will be made as at the last fishery, for travellers to proceed from Paumben direct to the camp. The only restriction imposed on travellers by the Paumben route will be inspection by the medical officers at Paumben.

6. All payments to be made in ready money in Ceylon currency.

7. Drafts on the banks in Colombo or bills on the agents of this Government in India, at ten days sight, will be taken on letters of credit produced to warrant the drawing of such drafts or bills.

8. For the convenience of purchasers, the treasurer at Colombo and the different Government agents of provinces will be authorized to receive cash deposits from parties intending to become purchasers, and receipts of these officers will be taken in payment of any sums due on account of the fishery.

9. No deposit will be received for a less sum than Rs. 250.

By His Excellency's command.

Everard Im Thurm, Colonial Secretary. Colonial Secretary's Office, Colombo, Feb. 27, 1904."

The sanitary precautions are of the utmost importance, for a plague stricken Hindu, if he were dying, would still endeavor to go where he might "get rich quickly."

As the time draws near, thousands of speculators and sightseers from farther and nearer India arrive. Berbers, Arabs, Persians, and Burmese, mingle with the Singhalese and Tamil divers. A town of huts to accommodate perhaps 50,000 springs into existence. Steamer service to Colombo is started, post and telegraph service is established and sanitary measures put in force. Conjurors employed by the divers go through incantations to preserve them from the sharks which abound in these waters.

This shark-charming power is believed to be hereditary and not dependent on the religion of the conjuror and he can, if ill or absent, convey the power to a substitute so that it will be respected by the sharks. To make matters doubly sure the divers arm themselves with a short, pointed piece of ironwood. This however is not their main reliance for a "wise woman" was able to avert a panic which was well under way, after one of the divers was bitten at the Tuticorin fishing of 1890. Excepting the loss of a limb occasionally not much damage is done by the sharks, a fact which sustains the implicit faith of the natives in their shark-charmers.

When the day set by the Government officials arrives, the fleet puts to sea after numerous ceremonies. The boats, which range from ten to fifteen tons, are grouped in fleets of sixty to seventy. Beside the divers they are manned by ten or more sailors, a steersman, and if possible by a shark-charmer (pillal karras). The boats leave at midnight in order to be ready on the banks at sunrise. At the firing of a signal gun diving commences. A stone of granite, shaped like a pyramid and weighing about thirty to forty pounds, is attached through a hole at the smaller end to the cord by which the diver is lowered. Some divers prefer a half-moon stone fastened to the waist. Above the stone when attached to the line is a loop for the diver's foot. The divers work in pairs, one going down and the other remaining in the boat to attend to the line, and in some cases exchanging positions as the diver becomes exhausted. Naked divers stay below fifty to eighty seconds on an average, though some can remain under water longer. Each man makes forty to fifty descents a day and brings up fifteen to thirty oysters each time. As a rule the maximum depth in these waters is about forty-two feet though fishing at twelve and thirteen fathoms is reported. The divers work from sunrise to noon, which allowing for shifts gives each man four hours diving for a day's work. A gun is fired as a signal for the day's fishing to cease and the fleet starts at once for shore. Upon arriving there the oysters are immediately landed by coolies who carry them in baskets, on their backs, to the "Kottu," or government stockade. There they are counted and each boat-load is divided into three equal parts; Two of these are chosen by officials for the government and the remaining heap is the boats' share. Formerly the catch was divided into four parts of which the government took three. Of the boats' share the divers get in some cases two thirds. As soon as the division is made, those belonging to the boat are quickly traded or sold to the numerous small speculators which abound in the camp. Six evenings in the week the government auctions off the catch in lots of one thousand.

While each day's catch is being counted the average run is carefully watched by experts who judge by the size, weight and general appearance of the oysters as to the probable yield of pearls. Opinions so formed are usually quite correct and bidding at the auctions are based on them to a great extent. The principal buyers are from Madras, Bombay, and other cities on the Coromandel and Malabar coasts of India, though local speculators buy many. The catch runs about one million per day. In 1903 forty-four million oysters were taken, but they realized much less than the catch of 1904, when the number was not quite twenty-six and three-quarter millions, though it netted the government $350,000; 1905, however, will be the record year as it is claimed the profits will reach the large sum of $830,000. These figures represent the government's share only.

The price realized at these sales varies not only with the season but from day-to-day. Ten to fourteen dollars per thousand is a fair average, though there are days when as much as twenty-four dollars is realized. Prices have ranged from $7.50 to $40.00 per thousand in one season. The net proceeds go to the revenue of Ceylon.