I FINANCE A WAR
I
S there romance in
pearls? Not at all. There is romance incidental to the getting of them,
but no more, I suppose, than in the trading of elephants' tusks, of
turtles' backs, of alligator skins, of musk, or in the digging for
sapphires, opals and gold.
The
pearling fleet proper of Jolo at that time consisted of some twenty
boats; that is, counting only those that were equipped with up-to-date
diving gear. Modern diving gear, by the way, includes the air pump,
rubber hose in suitably sectioned lengths with couplings, the diver's
rubber dress, to which is fitted a brass corselet to protect chest and
back, a brass helmet with thick wire-barred windows, the lead-soled
boots, the metal weights for front and back, and the coil of life or
signal line.
The
craft were small: one-masted luggers of shallow draught, 20 odd feet in
length and 6 to 7 in beam, with one cabin below the companion hatch for
the supercargo and diver. The crew were nine, as I have said elsewhere.
The pay was the pay of the craft.
The
Moros held that these Westernized craft were interlopers and were
stealing the bread out of their mouths, since Allah had specially
created the pearl shell for the Faithful of Sulu and had breathed
pearls into them as a reward for their devoutness. This attitude had
caused trouble in the time of the Spaniards, and later on the coming of
the United States flag. Treaties were therefore drawn up—without the
oysters' leave! As the law now stood, only Moros and Americans had the
right to dive for pearl shell. When the law had been in the making, the
Moros had known that no Americano could dive in eighteen fathoms of
ocean and live, and they laughed
in
