284 INTRODUCTION TO CONCHOLOGY. 



A number of people are now seen busily occupied in 

 depositing the pearl-shells in holes or pits, dug in the 

 ground to the depth of two or three feet; or on small 

 square places covered with mats and fenced round, where 

 they are suffered to remain till the inhabitant of each is 

 completely dried away : the pearls are then taken out and 

 prepared for the market. 



Each boat is manned with twenty men, and a tindal, or 

 chief boatman, who acts as pilot. Of these, ten are em- 

 ployed in rowing, or in assisting the divers : the others go 

 down alternately, five at a time, and thus enable their 

 companions to recruit their strength, which is frequently 

 exhausted by the excessive fatigue of diving. 



The business of a diver appears extraordinary and full of 

 danger to a European ; but to the Asiatic it affords a lucra- 

 tive and familiar occupation. His cliief risk and terror 

 arises from the ground-shark ; a common and terrible 

 inhabitant of the Eastern seas, and a source of perpetual 

 uneasiness to the adventurous Indian. It, however, rarely 

 happens that any lives are lost, for the real or imaginary 

 appearance of a shark immediately spreads dismay through- 

 out the whole fleet ; each diver then rapidly ascends, and 

 the boats return to Condatchy^ whence they seldom ven- 



