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THE TUQPtCAt AQmcvLwnmf, 



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itself, it is uot likely that they will hare any great 

 importance. 



The value of coral depends on its colour and its 

 size. The white or rose-tinted variety stands highest 

 in popular esteem, perhai)schietly because it is the rarest. 

 It is mostly found in the Straits of Messina, and on 

 some parts of the African and Sardiuiau co.vst.s. The 

 bright red coral, in which the polyps are still living 

 when it is fished up, stands nest iu value. Dead 

 coral has a duller tint, and is conseciueiitly sold at 

 a lower price. Two entirely different substances bear 

 the name of black coral. One of theui is uot, pro- 

 perly sppakiug, coral at all, and it is commercially 

 worthless, as it breaks into flakes instead of yielding 

 to the knife, though it is often sold as a costly 

 curiosity to foreiguers. The other is the common 

 red coral which has undergone a sea change, probably 

 throagh the decompo.'itiou of the living beings that 

 once built and inhabited it. It is not ninth admired 

 in Europe, but in India it commands high prices, so 

 that large quantities of it are exported every year. 

 These are the four important distinctions of colour, 

 though they of course include intermediate tints which 

 rank according to their clearness and brilliancy. 



The size is a still more important matter. The thick- 

 ness of the stem of the coral plant — we use the 

 commercial and entirely unscientific expression — deter- 

 mines its price, and many a branch of red coral is 

 valued more highly on account of its thickness than 

 a smaller piece of the choicer rose colour. The reason 

 for this is clear. A large straight piece of material 

 affords an opportunity to the artificer ; a crooked 

 one, if it is only bulky enough, can at least be turned 

 into large beads; mere points and fragments can only 

 be used for smaller ones, or made into those horns 

 which are said to be invaluable against the evil eye, 

 but which do not command a high price in the market, 

 perhaps because it is overstocked. 



The coral fishery of Naples has cow for the most 

 part, fallen into the hands of a few wealthy firms. 

 Formerly fishermen would club together and try 

 their fortune on co-operative principles, but this 

 •ystem has almost entirely died out. A few single 

 padroni still remain, but their exertions are entirely 

 confined to the gulf. They are usually men of ex- 

 perience who can decide how the net is to be laid 

 and drawn, and who hold the guiding rope in their 

 own hands. The boat and the nets are theirs, and 

 they pay their subordinates a fixed sum to serve under 

 them for one or two days. The whole yield, under 

 these circumstances, of course belongs to the padrone. 

 The larger firms could make an end of these boat- 

 men easily enough, but it is uot worth their while 

 to do so. The yield of the gulf is comparatively 

 small, and houses that possess from ten to thirty large 

 boats of their own find it more advantageous to pur- 

 chase the rough material from the local fishermen 

 than to crush them by a cruel and irresistible com- 

 petition, as they train the men, who are afterwards 

 employed ia expeditious to a distance. 



The instrument with which the coral is taken con- 

 sists of two strong beams of hard wood, which are 

 fastened together iu the form of a cross by metal 

 claspiugs, to which a weight is added. Strong hempen 

 nets ai e fastened to the arms. When a bank is reached 

 tliii primitive instalment is lowered, and moved up 

 nnd down against the submarine rocks by means of 

 a capstan turned by the whole of the boat's crew, 

 except the padrone, who directs the movement of the 

 apparatus by means of a second rope which is attached 

 to the chief one some feet above the psint where the 

 latter is secured to the centre of the cross. The coral 

 branches are caught in thie meshes of the nets, and 

 remain hanging in them. Those that are broken off 

 by the wood work and arc u.sually lost. In some 

 places, especially on the cost of Sardinia, the end of 

 the arms is surmounted by a circle of curved iron 

 teeth, like tho«e of a garden rake, but larger and 

 stionger, below which open nets are suspemled. In 

 this case the beams are nearly double the length of 

 those generally used by the largest boats, as they 

 often measure six or seven meters — that is, nearly 

 eight yards from end to end. It is only by thi'5 toeans 



that coral car. be oStaiued from the lower surfaces of 

 shelving rocks ; but the teeth are apt to fracture the 

 stems in such a way as to render them almost 

 worthless ; and so this form of the instrument 

 is rarely used where the other cau be employed; 



The banks, or rather rocks, that are most frequently 

 visited lie at a depth of from 250 to 450 feet beloW 

 the surface of the water ; it is very rarely that an 

 attempt is made to reach those which are lower than 

 600 feet- Indeed, it lies in the very nature of the 

 ca=e that, even if they exist, they should remain un- 

 kno>vu, and that, if they were known, they would 

 hardly repay the cost of fishing while it is conducted 

 on the present system. They are scattered all along 

 the coasts of the Mediterranean, sometimes close to 

 the shore, and sometimes at twenty-four, or even 

 thirty hours' hard rowing from it. At many stations 

 there is a small lo;al fi,^he^y ; but the bulk of the 

 trade, at least in Italy, is in the hands of large firms, 

 which, for the most part, have their centres iu Genoa, 

 Leghorn, or the Bay of Naples. These firms both 

 supply and equip the boats, which, according to 

 their size, are manned by five or ten fishermen. In 

 addition to these a padrone is alloted to each, who 

 exercises large disciplinary powers. He is a man of 

 knowledge and experience, aud usually receives a 

 a percentage on the value of the season's take, as 

 well as his regular pay. The selection of the crew 

 ot his boat is of ten left en'irely to him ; he is always 

 consulted with respect to it, aud enjoys a right of veto. 

 The men are hired for the season, by agreement, for 

 from sixty to seventy francs a month, a large part 

 of which is usually paid beforehand, aud their food, 

 which is of the coarsest kind. As a rule, the season 

 lasts from April to the end of September, but it depends 

 greatly on the weather, as fishing is impossible in 

 mist or when the sea is high. 



The labour is exceedingly hard. At dawn the pad- 

 rone calls his men and, after a short prayer, the net 

 is lowered ; from then till sunset the work continues 

 almost without interruption. The exertion required to let 

 down and wind up the net under a blazing summer 

 sun is extreme, and it has to be done on ship-biscuit 

 of the coarsest kind, and water that on the more dis- 

 tant stations has often become foul by long keeping. 

 In the evening a sort of soup is made. Garlic and 

 peperoni, the pungent fruit of a southern plant, are 

 boiled in water ; olive-oil is added, and this is poured 

 over biscuits which have been broken and placed in 

 the dish. For months this diat is hardly varied, and 

 yet the men retain their good spirits. After the even- 

 ing meal has been taken, they indulge in guitar-play- 

 ing and singing, aud on the more frequented banks 

 the boats answer and vie with each other. 



In 1878 the discovery of the Sciacca bank, which 

 lies at a considerable distance off the southern coast 

 of Sicily, roughly speaking between Girgenti and the 

 island of Pantellaria, caused a crisis in the coral trade. 

 At one time nearly a thoasand boats might be found 

 fishing there, aud seeming to form a city in bhe 

 midst of the sea. Each of these is said to have taken 

 between one and two hundredweight of coral a day 

 It is certain that within three years 88,000 German 

 centners were taken from this bank alone, A great 

 part of this coral was dead, aud much of it was of 

 the black colour that only finds purchasers in the 

 East, The large firms did everything in their power 

 to prevent the market being overflooded. Many of 

 them still retain hundreds and some thousands of 

 cases which have never been placed in the hands of 

 the artificers. Still the price fell, and it is only at a 

 considerable sacrifice that the greater houses still keep 

 their boats at sea and the workshops open ; but they 

 know that, if they let them fall, the fate of their old 

 competitors in Marseilles awaits them, for both the fishing 

 for coral and its treatment by the artificers depend 

 upon traditious which, when they have once beeu lost, 

 it is difiicult to revive. One of the matters of gen- 

 eral interest which the bank of Sciacca placed clearly 

 before those who were interested iu it from other 

 than a mercantile point of view was the tact that 

 uot only were dead aud live coral there found side 

 by side, but that iu many ca?es the latter was growl 



