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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



was so long that even when she stood up- 

 right it brushed on the ground. 



This fierce, hazardous pearl quest is 

 pursued now just as in the days of King 

 Solomon. "As long as there are pretty 

 women there will be men buying pearls," 

 a Jew at Bassora told me. 



From June to November often as many 

 as 5,000 small boats, each carrying from 

 6 to 15 men, are busy fishing for pearls 

 off Bahrein and along the Arab coast. It 

 is a precarious trade, calling for courage, 

 skill, and strength. Scores of stalwart 

 divers die each season from shark bites, 

 the stings of poisonous rays, and from 

 other accidents. 



HOW THE PEARL DIVER WORKS 



The divers work in from 5 to 20 fath- 

 oms of water, although 7 fathoms is per- 

 haps the average depth. The best pearls 

 seem to come from the deeper waters. 



The method of diving is simple. A big 

 naked man, usually an Abyssinian, puts a 

 forked bone over his nose and presses 

 beeswax into his ears to keep out the salt 

 water. Then he ties a stone to his feet, 

 heavy enough to pull him down. About 

 his waist is slung a net basket in which to 

 carry the oysters he finds at the bottom. 

 As he slides over the boat's rail and sinks 

 into the sea, he carries with him one end 

 of a life-line, the other end being held by 

 comrades in the boat. When the diver is 

 ready to come up with his catch or if 

 danger threatens, he jerks on this life- 

 line as a miner pulls the signal rope in a 

 shaft. 



The diver usually remains under water 

 a minute or more. One Arab writer, Ibn 

 Batutah, solemnly asserts that long ago 

 Arab divers could stay under water for 

 two hours ! But modern Arab divers are 

 not so long-winded. As it is, many die 

 each season from loss of blood, induced 

 by diving too deep or remaining under 

 water too long. I have seen a man come 

 up from a to- fathom dive bleeding at the 

 nose as if struck with a club. It was of 

 these dangers that Matthew Arnold wrote 

 in that affecting simile : 



"And dear as the wet diver to the eyes 

 Of his pale wife, who waits and weeps on 



shore, 

 By sands of Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf; 



Plunging all day in the blue waves, at night, 

 Having made up his tale of precious pearls, 

 Rejoins her in their hut upon the shore." 



Under low sheds on the beach the oys- 

 ters are opened and searched for pearls. 

 A small brass sieve, equipped with three 

 sets of holes, is used for sorting the gems. 

 The pearls that will not go through the 

 largest holes in the sieve are called "ras" ; 

 the residue of the second sieving are 

 called "batin," and the smallest ones, the 

 content of the last sieving, are called 

 "dzel." 



WILD NIGHTS IN THE PEARE PORTS 



Black pearls of sinister luster are often 

 found in the Bahrein waters, and many 

 times the tiny steel-colored "seed pearls" 

 are brought up. 



In the busy pearling season often 1,000 

 boats are anchored at one time off Bah- 

 rein, and Menameh, its principal port, is 

 crowded with fishermen, buyers, and 

 gamblers. 



A night on this barbaric, tumultuous 

 beach is not readily forgotten. A long 

 row of mud- walled, straw-covered coffee 

 shops stretches the length of Menameh's 

 water front, and from red sunset till 

 flaring, noisy dawn the revels of the care- 

 less boatmen run their brawling course. 

 There are cheap, gaudy native theaters, 

 too, where slovenly Arab girls, all beads, 

 bracelets, anklets, spangles, and tattoo 

 work, wriggle and sway through the 

 sinuous dances of the Oriental "mid- 

 ways/' 



And all about, cross-legged, reflect- 

 ive of eye, sipping coffee and murmur- 

 ing quietly among themselves, sits the 

 moneyed crowd of Hindus, Jews, and 

 Parsees who have come to buy pearls. At 

 Bushire, too, and at Bunder Abbas, on 

 the Persian littoral, pearl traffic is brisk, 

 and French buyers come out each season 

 to buy for the great jewelers of Paris. 



TRAFFICKING IN MERMAIDS' TEARS 



Many of the finest pearls in the "best- 

 matched" sets in America came originally 

 from Bahrein, and as much as five million 

 dollars' worth of pearls have been found 

 off the island in one season. 



Frequently imitation pearls, made in 



