PEARL FISHERY OF 190H. 61 



down to the fact that on those first occasions I had a heavy cold 

 in my head. 



I was once more back on the Master Attendant's barque, moored 

 in the middle of the fleet on which the divers were all hurrying 

 up to complete their day's load within the given time. 



By noon most of the divers are tired out and, if it has been a 

 fairly successful day, the boats are fairly loaded up. Moreover, at 

 noon at this time of the year the wind almost invariably changes 

 its direction and blows towards the land. At noon, therefore, a gun 

 fired from the Master Attendant's barque gives the signal for 

 pulling up the anchor, hoisting the sails, and beginning the run 

 home. If the paar which is being fished is some distance from 

 the land, the run home may take any time, according to the 

 strength of that fair wind, from three to five hours. 



The run home is, I am afraid, a busy and, from a Government 

 point of view, a bad time. The men, other than the tired out 

 divers, occupy themselves nominally in picking over their oysters, 

 throwing away stones, shells, and other useless things which in 

 the hurry have been gathered in with the oysters, and in pre- 

 paring the loads for easy transport from the boats to the shore. 

 But, as a matter of fact, it is well known that this opportunity 

 and these hours are employed in picking over the oysters in a 

 different sense. The finest pearls almost invariably occur just 

 inside the edge of the shells, where they are held in position 

 by so thin a membrane that they appear ready to fall out at any 

 moment. There is no doubt that many of these finest, roundest, 

 and best coloured pearls are picked out during the run home and 

 concealed about the persons of the boat's crew, and this, despite 

 the fact that each boat has a so-called Government guard on board, 

 and that a farther check is supposed to be provided by the Govern- 

 ment steam launches which run in with the fleet, and the crews 

 of which are supposed to keep their eyes very wide open for the 

 illicit practices indicated. It is in this iniquitous practice of 

 picking over that one chief reason why the Government does not 

 get its fair share of the pearls lies. 



It is as pretty a sight as one can well imagine, this homeward 

 race before a strong wind and over a tropical sea of a hundred or 

 so of ruddy-sailed craft, orientally fantastic in colour and shape, 

 and each deck crowded with a motley crew of brown-skinned men 

 and boys naked but for a few rags of brilliant coloured cloth. 

 Each crew strives to get in first, in order to get first attention 

 and so soonest to dispose of their loads and thus gain rest after a 

 day of really hard labour. There is no lowering of sails as the shore 

 is approached, no slackening of the speed till, as often as not, each 



K 25-03 



