TMP TROPJCAL AGRICULTURIST. fJUNE I, 1892. 
feels the movements of the worker below, never so 
tight as to retard free action, and never so slack as 
to drag on the bottom and probably get foul round 
a coral-cup's base, and so condemn the diver to a 
watery grave. Indeed, he should be a wide-awake 
fellow, quick to act in an emergency and constantly 
alert. 
The mode of working is as follows: A "patch" 
of shell having been discovered, the boats beat up 
to the windward edge, and then drift down over it 
with a fouled anchor; that is, with the anchor 
upside down, so that it does not catch, but allows 
the boat to drag slowly over the ground, the speed 
of drif t ng being regulated by paying out more or 
less chain. "When the diver finds that he is ofi the 
patch he comes up, the boat takes to windward 
again, and drifts over it as before. A patch being 
often one or two square miles in area, it is next to 
impossible to go over the same ground twice, though 
the entire fleet of 150 boats often work on the 
same patch. 
The author's personal exparieace as a diver is 
thus given : — 
Once again we were ready to start, all except Joe, 
who, knowing I could do nothing without him, 
wanted a few more days to finish his spree. I 
coaxed and entreated, but to no purpose ; expenses 
were going on, and nothing coming in, and, after 
tw'o days of impatience and chafing under my own 
helplessness, I made up my mind to try to dive 
myself, and the next tide I left the creek with that 
intent. The following day I made my first descent, 
and it is impressed very vividly on my memory. 
Long before old Sol had made his appearance 
above the horizon that morning I crept up on deck 
to take a survey of my surroundings. The first 
streaks of dawn were li 'hting up the eastern sky, 
and in the distance I could see the dim outline of 
the " ninety mile" beach, ninety miles without a hill 
or tree, creek or habitation — nothing but white, 
glistening sand. Beneath, the " mighty liquid 
metronome" lay calm and peaceful, unruffled as yet 
by the morning breeze, and all around were 
anchored the pearlers. At sunrise I called the boys, told 
them of my plans, and chose one named Ketchee 
for my tender. After partaking of our morning 
coffee I proceeded, with Ketchee's help, to don the 
, ponderous diving dress. The rubber suit, all in one 
piece, and which one gets into through the neck, 
was the first article to put on ; then the leaden- 
soled boots and the corselet, to which the heknet 
is screwed, and the chest- and back-weights— in all 
weighing some fifty or sixty pounds. I stepped on 
the ladder hanging over the boat's side, and had 
the life line, air pipe, and helmet attached ; then 
the order to pump was given, and, last of all, the 
face glass was screwed up. Oh I that there had been 
a wrecoh with which to screw up my courage as 
well. It had sunk to the bottom of those leaden- 
aoled boots, and though Ketchee tapped the helmet, 
intimating that all was ready, I felt loath to let go. 
Thoughts of sharks, ocfcopi, and other monsters of 
the deep flew through my brain, and I felt-sure that 
the pipe v/ould burs^ or the boys stop pumping, or 
some unforeseen accident would occur. 
As I hesitated, thinking of some excuse to have 
that face-glass taken off again, I glanced up at 
Ketchee, still undecided what to do, and saw him 
grinning all over his yellow face at my discomfiture. 
That decided me ; I could n't stand being laughed 
at by a Malay ; so without more ado I grasped the 
guiding-line firmly, ai d dropped. 
Siilash I The water closed over me with a 
buzzing sound, and the air whistled in at the top of the 
helmet with a weird noise, and I saw the bottom of 
the boat just above mo. My ears began to ache, and 
the pain intrened as I slid down and down, until I 
fairly yelled with the agony caused by the unusual 
pressure of air on the ear-drums. Htill swiftly down I 
went — would the bottom never touch my kicking feet? 
At last I reached it with a thud, and instantly all 
pain ceased, and I scrambled to my feot, full of 
curiosity. 
My first thought was, how foolish I had been to 
dread leaving the monotonous sea and sky above, when, 
only Ion fatliotns Ijolyw, lay an wverchauging scene of 
beauty— a paradise, although a watery one. The 
ground I stood upon was rock of coral structure, grown 
over with coral-cups from minute size to four and five 
feet in diameter. Sponges as high as one's head, 
sponge-cups, graceful corallines, and sea-flowers of 
new and beautiful forms, and tinted with all the hues 
of the rainbow, waved gently to and fro ; while, like 
butterflies, flitting and chasing one another in and out 
among them all, were hundreds of tiny fishes, so gay 
with colors that the historical coat ^f .Joseph would 
have paled beside them. 
Truly it was an enchanting scene, so bright, so beau- 
tiful, and so novel withal, that I walked aljout with 
curious delight, forgetful of all the means which 
enabled me to intrude upon the fishes' dominion until 
I was brought to my senses by a sharp jerk on the life- 
line. This being an interrogation from Ketchee as to 
whether I was all right, I answered it in a similar way, 
and, as I did so, a familiar object caught my eye in the 
shape of an empty beer-bottle. It stood upright on a 
little ledge of rock, and I could read its flaming yellow 
label of world-wide reputation. " Ye Gods I " I cried, 
" what vulgarity 1 An advertisement even here I Is there 
no place on the earth or under the waters where one 
can escape the odious advertiser ? " And then for the 
first time I began to realize my position : my head was 
aching, and I was breathing in quick, short gasps ; I 
was oppressed, and an uncanny, eery feeling crept 
over me as I tried to pierce the dim aziire of the 
distance beyond, where the shadowy sea-fans moved so 
languidly, and my imagination conjured up huge forms 
in the distance. 
I was getting nervous, and had therefore been 
down long enough ; so I gave the signal to pull up, 
and in a few moments was greedily drinking in the 
pure, fresh air of heaven through the open face-glass. 
My nose and ears were bleeding profusely, and I 
spat a good deal of blood also, but as I had been 
told that this would happen the first time, I was not 
alarmed. The pressure had opened a communication 
between the mouth and the ears, and I could now 
perform the extraordinary feat of blowing a mouth- 
ful of smoke through my ears, which all divers can 
do. A.fter this I experienced no pain whatever when 
descending, and soon became a fairly good diver. 
It was on my third descent that I found the first 
shell. It contained three pearls which I had set in 
a ring as a memento, and were until quite lately, 
when I discovered that it showed to better advantage 
on a whiter and more delicate hand than mine, and 
in the cause of art transferred it thither. 
My largest day's work was three hundred and 
ten pairs of shells ; this is rather over a quarter 
of a ton. The greatest number on record collected 
in one day is one thousand and five. These were 
picked up by " Japanese Charley," a little Jap about 
five feet high, who was always tended by his wife, 
and whose boat was the prettiest model and the 
smartest sailer in the fleet. The most valuable pearl 
discovered on this coast is that known as the "Southern 
Cross"— a cluster of six pearls in the shape of a 
crucifix which was exhibited at the Indian and 
Colonial Exhibition, London, in 1886, and was valued 
at $50,000 This pearl was found at low water by 
an old breach-comber, and was sold by him for £10. 
The diver, as the reader may imagine, gets many 
scares when below. A fifteen-foot shark, mag- 
nified by the water, and making a bee-line for one, 
is sufficient to make the stoutest heart quake, in spite 
of the assertion that sharks have never been known 
to attack a man in dress. Neither is the sight of 
a large turtle comforting when one does not know 
exactly what it is, and the coiling of a sea-snake 
around one's legs, although it has only one's hands 
to bite at, is, to say the least, unpleasant. A little 
fish called the stone-fish is one of the enemies 
of the diver. It seems to make its habitation 
right under the pearl-shell, as it is only when 
picking them up that any one has been known 
to be bitten. I remember well the first time I was 
bitten by this spiteful member of the finny tribe. I 
dropped my bag of shells, and hastened to the surface ; 
but in this short space of time my hand and arm had 
so swollen that it was with difficulty I could get the 
dress off, being unable to ork for three days, and 
