388 SUPPLEMENT 
twenty men, besides the master, ten of whom are rowers, and 
ten divers. The latter, who are from infancy habituated to 
this trade, and the most skilful of whom come from Colang, 
on the coast of Malabar, and from the island of Manaar, 
divide themselves into two bands, of five each, which dive 
and rest alternately. Each man is provided with a net, in the 
form of a sack, to put the pearl animals in, with a cord, to 
which a stone is attached to facilitate his descent, and finally 
with another cord, one extremity of which remains in the bark, 
and of which he makes use to give notice that he wishes to 
come up. At the moment when he is about to dive, he takes 
between the toes of his right foot the cord with the stone, 
between the others, the net, and seizes the cord of call with 
his right hand, at the same time that he stops his nostrils with 
the left. Arriving quickly at the bottom of the water, some- 
times to the depth of from four to ten fathoms, he hooks the 
net to his neck, and works with the right hand in plucking 
away the shells, with which he fills the net. At the end of 
two, and sometimes of four, five, or six minutes, which last, 
however, is very rare, and depends upon the skill of the diver, 
he gives the signal for ascent, with his cord of call, and is 
drawn up by the men who remain in the bark. Each diver 
can repeat this operation fifty times in the same day, bringing 
up about fifty shells each time, but sometimes the blood will 
stream from his nose and ears. The fishery continues thus 
until noon, when a second discharge of cannon recals the 
barks to the point of departure. There the proprietors of the 
fishery, or the government, if it has reserved to itself the right, 
cause the shells to be deposited in pits of one or two feet in 
depth, or on mats, in square places, surrounded by palisades. 
At the end of some time, when the animals are dead, which is 
judged of by the opening of the shell, they search attentively 
in the latter, and in the animal itself, that is, in the lobes 
the mantle, sometimes even by boiling, for the free pearls, 
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