PEARLS 219 



possibly pale salmon or orange. Such a gem might be 

 valuable. 



Great pearls are not generally found on shallow reefs. 

 He who would search for them systematically must dive, 

 and if he does not possess the proper costume and 

 accessories his trips below are but brief, and not always 

 profitable. When a diver boasts that he can remain 

 under water two or three minutes — and the boast is 

 very common — he has gauged his endurance by his 

 sensations, not by the clock. Once an expert was 

 timed, a coloured gentleman who had great repute 

 among his companions, all capable divers. He made a 

 special and supreme effort, and though the watch 

 recorded barely seventy seconds, he was much distressed. 

 Recovery was, however, speedy; of ten subsequent 

 minutes he spent more than half out of sight. It is 

 not argued that human beings cannot remain volun- 

 tarily under water more than seventy seconds, but the 

 feat is so rare that those who accomplish it are not 

 usually pearl-divers. 



The natives of some parts of Borneo declare that the 

 valves of the oysters containing the largest pearls are 

 always open, and that by peering into the water the 

 pearls may be seen. They tell a story of a gigantic 

 pearl which was thus discovered by the men of old and 

 actually brought while within the oyster into a canoe, 

 but had slipped from the fingers of a careless holder 

 into deep water. 



Spencer St. John, author of "Life in the Forests of 

 the Far East," had among his friends a chief who ven- 

 tured most of his possessions in a pearling cruise. Dis- 

 aster attended the enterprise, but without subduing his 

 faith in luck; mortgaging everything, even to his wife 

 and child, he went out to woo fortune again. His slave- 

 boy was preparing to dive one day when he started back, 



