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THE PEARL
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gather the shells he should fall, he is likely to shoot feet foremost to the surface.
Though
dress-diving has heretofore been confined almost entirely to white
men, the Japanese, Chinese, Malays, South Sea Islanders, and others in
different places, are now being educated to it chiefly through an
Australian fishery.
At
the northwestern corner of Australia, a thousand miles from the nearest
railroad and ten days from the nearest port, there are pearl-fisheries
where the climate is so hot that white men cannot be obtained for the
work. Colored men are shipped there from Singapore to man the boats,
the pearl-fishers giving a bond to the government of 100 pounds
sterling for each man employed, as a guarantee that he will not go to
other parts of the state. A fleet of about three hundred boats and
fifteen hundred men are employed there, the supply station being at
Broome township.
In
all things, when once the improvements of science gain a foothold
anywhere in the world, the whole earth succumbs eventually to their
advantages, and so with diving; the habits and
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