PEARL FISHING. 



701 



minute, but he will repeat the operation sometimes as much 

 as fifteen or twenty times. The work is very distressing, the 

 increased pressure of the water affects the entire system, and 

 frequently on rising to the surface the water which runs from 

 their ears, nose and mouth is tinged with blood. The effect 

 is also to induce pulmonary diseases, and the divers rarely 

 attain old age. Sharks are also common in these waters, and 

 the divers are not unfrequently destroyed by these rapa- 

 cious monsters, who are the more attracted by the fact that the 

 divers, for their own convenience, are naked. 



The work continues until noon, when a second gun gives 

 notice for its cessation. The boats then return with the cargo 

 they have gained, and are received by the proprietors on the 

 shore, who personally superintend their discharge, which must 

 be finished before dark, since anything left over night would 

 most certainly be stolen. 



The fisheries of Ceylon were formerly very valuable, but at 

 present the banks show signs of exhaustion, from over-fishing 

 most probably. In 1798 they are said to have produced 

 nearly a million dollars' worth of pearls, but now they seldom 

 yield more than a hundred thousand dollars' worth. The in- 

 habitants along the coast of the Bay of Bengal, the Chinese 

 seas, and the islands of Japan, are also engaged in the pearl 

 fishing. Together the yield is estimated at about four mil- 

 lions of dollars. 



Further west, on the Persian coast, the Arabian gulf and 

 the Muscat shore, as well as in the Red sea, pearls are found. 



In these latter countries the pearl fishing commences in 

 July, for during this and the next month the sea is usually 

 calm. When the boats have arrived over the bed, they 

 anchor, the water being eight or nine fathoms deep. The 

 divers carry their bag tied around their waists, and plug their 

 aoetrils with cotton, then closing their mouths, are sunk by a 

 stone rapidly to the bottom. The pearls obtained frcm the 



