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.
[Illustration:
_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.
[Illustration:
_Copyright, 1906, by The Century Company. _
EAST INDIAN PEARL-DIVERS RESTING]