THE MILK POND OYSTERS. 71 



The most terrible danger wliich the oyster divers 

 incur is that of meeting a shark ; and the signal that 

 one of those monsters is in sight causes among them 

 a panic as great as that which a hawk excites among 

 a covey of partrides. Sometimes, if the diver strikes 

 himself against a rock, his imagination will convert 

 it into the horrible jaws of a shark, and he will 

 return to the surface to communicate his alarm to 

 his companions. 



When the flotilla of boats has unloaded its cargoes, 

 each proprietor takes his own lot, and spreads it 

 upon matweed in a hollow dug in the earth, and 

 leaves the temperature to act upon the mollusks, 

 which very soon putrefy. The pearls are then care- 

 fully searched out, and the putrefied matter is after- 

 wards carefully boiled, so that nothing of any value 

 shall escape. The pearls when extracted from the 

 shells are carefully washed and cleaned, and are 

 afterwards polished with an almost impalpable 

 powder made of the nacre itself. They are then 

 arranged in classes according to size, by being sifted 

 through copper sieves of various dimensions. 



The next operation is drilling them for stringing. 

 The drilling tools are of different sizes, according to 

 the class of the pearls. They are fixed in rounded 

 wooden handles, and are worked by a bow. 



A pearl fishing-boat, furnished with a good crew 

 of divers, can gather in a day from three thousand 

 to three thousand five hundred pearl oysters, and 



