18 THE SPOXGE FISHERY OF THE OTTOMAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



Ottoman Archipelago. The sponge fishing grounds are on the coast of 

 Candia, Syria, and Barbary. The average depth at which sponges are 

 found is thirty fathoms ; those of an inferior quality are found at lesser 

 depths. The sponge fishing boats in the island of Calymnos amount to 

 260, employing 1,600 men and boys. These boats, called scafi, are on an 

 average six tons each, carrying from six to seven, and sometimes eight men, 

 of whom two are rowers. 



The proceeds of the sponge are divided into shares, the divers receiving 

 a whole share, and the rowers two-thirds of a share. The diver, who goes 

 head-foremost into the water, takes with him a triangular- shaped stone, to 

 which a strong line is tied to a hole in one of its corners, to assist him in his 

 descent, and to direct him, like a rudder, to any particular spot. 



On reaching the bottom, he tears off a number of sponges from the rock, 

 gives a pull at the line, when he and the sponges in his arms, are drawn 

 up by the rowers. A good diver will make from eight to ten dives 

 during the day. 



The sponge is covered with a thin, tough, black cuticle, inside of which 

 there is a white liquid like milk, and of the same consistence. The sponge 

 in this state presents a very different appearance to what it does when freed 

 from these extraneous substances. The annual value of the sponges taken 

 by the Calyinniotes amounts to about <£25,000. The finest are sent to 

 Great Britain, the common and coarser to France, Austria, and 

 Constantinople. 



There are nineteen boats, employing 120 divers, engaged in the fishery 

 from Castel Rosso. But the sponge fishery there is declining, as the 

 natives find it more profitable to engage themselves as seamen in the 

 regular trading vessels. The amount derived. from sponges is calculated 

 at about £2,500 a year, the half of what it was a few years ago. 



The only article of export from the island of Astropalia is sponge, to 

 the value of about £1,500 a year. There are twelve sponge fishing boats, 

 with 100 divers. During the months of May to September, only very old 

 men, women, and children, are to be found on the island of Symi. All the 

 able-bodied part of the male population being at this season at the sponge 

 fishery. 190 boats are employed in it, with nearly 1,500 men. The merchants 

 of the island usually go themselves to Marseilles, or Trieste, in their own 

 vessels, of which they now possess eighteen, of from 100 to 300 tons, to sell 

 the sponges fished by their countrymen, to the value of about £15,000 

 a year ; bringing back from those places various articles, part of which they 

 send to the neighbouring islands. 



The sponge fishing on the coast of Latakia is carried on during three or 

 four months, according to the weather. A small fleet of sponge fishing boats, 

 of from fifteen to twenty tons, manned each by six or ten hands, including 

 the divers, are daily occupied in this severe but successful commercial 

 pursuit. 



