24 



in a lump, the head of the crew giving a receipt or making 

 his mark. The division of the money among the indivi- 

 dual divers is often protracted and somewhat heated as 

 they are men who are obstinate as mules and do not 

 understand a give and take policy when applied to money 

 matters. PLach man wants his full pound of tiesh or rather 

 his uttermost pie. On one occasion the money received, 

 after division was tuade, lelt a single pie over and how this 

 was to be shared among seven men was a puzzle that 

 caused protracted argument. Eventually a brilliant 

 solution was evolved and they went ofl and bought a 

 cheroot in the bazaar which was solemnly divided into 

 seven equal- sized fragments and shared out — a most 

 happy consummation whereby no m^n could grieve that 

 his neighbour had had more ihan his fair share. 



This childish fear of one beino- favoured more than 

 another is a well-marked characteristic of these men. On 

 several occasions after getting our first motor launch, she 

 proved unable to tow the whole fieet to sea at any reason- 

 able speed in the teeth of a strong wind owing to the 

 weight of the canoes. In consequence the boats got to the 

 fishing ground very late and catches were small. To 

 remedy this as far as possible, I ordered the launch to tow 

 half the fleet onlv and so h;ecure to these boats a oood 

 day's work ; to equalize matters I instructed the tindal to 

 take the other half of the Meet out the second day and so on 

 alternately, returning each day for the second half of the 

 Meet after taking the first lot to the banks. To my sur- 

 prise the men point blank refused. " Take us all or none " 

 they said ; " by your arrangement some boats will get a 

 "good day's fishing and the others nothing ; rather than 

 this should happen we would prefer not be towed at all !" 

 Again, a system for awarding substantial money prizes to 

 the canoes which fished most regularly through a season 

 was refused — the men told me they would be very glad if a 

 present were divided equally among them, but they would 

 have nothino- to do with a scheme under which some 

 boats would gain prizes and others none. Suspicion of 

 each others honesty explains largely, I believe, this dog- 

 in-the-manger attitude. 



From their shells the divers usually set aside each 

 day one shell per man as a contribution to the church, 



