PEARLS AND PEARL-DIVING 



fishing fleet. For the most part the sea is dead calm and 

 oily-looking ; the sky is a brilliant, cloudless blue, and 

 the sun is already scorching the naked shoulders of the 

 fishermen, for the boat has cast anchor at but nine degrees 

 above the equator. Instead of the muttered word or two 

 and the silent obedience to orders that would characterise 

 an English or American crew, there is a frantic babble 

 of tongues, often in four different languages ; violent 

 gesticulating, arguing, and squabbling, and an occasional 

 free fight, till we might well wonder how these men ever 

 get through any work at all. But the overseer, some- 

 times a Portuguese or an Englishman, restores order at 

 last, and the first " shift " of divers bestir themselves and 

 make ready for the task. Where ten divers go to a boat, 

 they work in shifts of five, turn and turn about. 



When once the ropes are run over the blocks or the 

 gunwale, all signs of laziness disappear ; the shouting and 

 bustle certainly do not diminish, on the contrary, they are 

 part of the business, as will presently appear, and they 

 rather increase three-fold. Everyone now seems to move 

 as if fixed on springs, and so swiftly is the work carried out 

 that it is not until you have watched half a dozen descents 

 that you realise what is being done. The shift of divers 

 stand in a row along one side of the boat and beside 

 each of them is a sort of projection something like a 

 ship's davit, with a block at the end of it, through which 

 the rope will be hauled. From it depends a short length 

 of the rope, to the end of which is fastened a large, 

 smooth stone weighing about forty pounds. Some boats 

 dispense with the davit-like contrivance, in which case the 



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