928 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



the sea-depths by a stout rope weighted by a heavy stone, 

 weighing about 56 pounds, or more. 



When about to descend, the diver seizes the rope 

 between the toes of his right foot, for by custom he can 

 use his toes as well as his fingers, and he holds a net-bag 

 with his left foot. He grasps another rope with his right 

 hand, and, holding his nostrils with his left, he (naked, 

 save for a cloth around his loins) plunges into the sea, and 

 having reached the bottom, the stone is pulled up. 



Laid on his face, he quickly gathers the oysters, and 

 places them within the net. At the end of thirty seconds 

 he generally signals to be pulled up ; the longest period 

 possible for the divers to remain under water being stated 

 to be about eighty seconds. When in the boat again, the 

 violence of the operation appears by his discharging water, 

 and sometimes blood, from his mouth, ears, and nose. He 

 then rests while the others descend. 



Each man will thus go to the bottom from three or 

 four to twenty, and even forty or fifty times a day, bringing 

 up possibly a hundred shells each time. They are the 

 poorest of the people who labour in this dangerous way, 

 and live but a few years, being liable to the bursting of 

 blood-vessels, drowning, being devoured by sharks, or 

 dying of consumption. A 'knife is generally carried by 

 way of protection against sharks, and the native priests on 

 shore exact fees to keep up a beating of drums, and to 

 say prayers for the assumed protection of the divers from 

 their finny enemies. 



Well has Mrs. Hemans said : 

 " Thou hast been where the rocks of coral grow, 

 Thou hast fought with the eddying waves ; 

 Thy cheek is pale, and thy heart beats low, 

 Thou searcher of ocean's caves ! 



