1883.] Pearls and Pearl Fisheries. 735 
in closing upon it transfixes the lips and renders the ‘monster 
harmless. 
Each pair of divers keep their catch separate from the rest, in 
large nets or baskets, so that luck and labor determine their 
reward. ` 
They do not dive alternately, as too much time would be lost 
in changing. The man who has been down floats or holds to a 
rope at the surface a minute or two until rested, and goes down 
again until weary, when his comrade takes his place in the water. 
This continues without interruption until noon. The diver’s pay 
is one-fourth the number of all the shells he obtains. The stimu- 
lus of self-interest thus brought to bear is so great that, as the 
time approaches for ceasing work the efforts of the men increase, 
and there is never so much activity as when the heat is most in- 
tense, the sun glaring fiercely and the sea like melted lead. At 
length the signal gun is fired, every stone goes down simultane- 
ously for one more haul, and then the fleet makes at once for the 
shore. When they reach the beach, in an instant the divers are 
in the water and each pair carries the results of the day’s work 
to the shed. In two hours, unless delayed by adverse winds, the 
boats are unloaded. At the shed the oysters are divided into 
four heaps. The divers remove their heap, the three heaps be- 
longing to the government are left in the shed, the total is assorted 
into piles each containing a thousand oysters, the doors are 
locked, guards stationed and everything is ready for the pub- 
lic auction sale. This system, says Simmonds, from whom the 
details are mostly derived, brings to bear upon the daily results 
of the fishery the largest amount of private interest and the 
smallest amount of government control. No man could be 
forced into doing what the divers do voluntarily; no fixed 
Payment would induce them to dive so often in the day, or to 
unload their boats with equal dispatch. Their exertions are neces- 
sarily very violent, and the divers as a rule are short lived. The 
oysters are sold in lots of one thousand ; formerly in smaller 
numbers, as twenty to fifty, ora hundred. As really fine pearls 
are as scarce as really fine diamonds, of a hundred people who 
buy, eighty suffer a loss, or at least make no profit. If the gov- 
ernment or the subcontractors risked their profits on the actual 
Yield of pearl and pearl shells obtained by their boats, many of 
them would be ruined, as was formerly the case. But by taking 
