brought
up at a single descent, but a diver is doing well if he brings up one
oyster in ten descents. The average daily catch of each man is probably
two or three oysters, but a fisherman has been known to bring up fifty
in one day. On some vessels, those who fall behind in the catch are
punished by extra duty aboard ship.
The
pearling industry has had a marked effect on the industrial and social
condition of the natives of the Australian coast and the adjacent
islands. Many of these natives now have boats of their own, and others
seek employment on other vessels. Law and order and decent respect for
property have arisen, with schools and churches. The result is all the
more remarkable when it is considered that scarcely more than a
generation has passed since labor among the men was unknown, the women
doing all the work necessary to meet their scanty requirements.
As
now carried on in Australia, pearling is a hard life, the men working
for two thirds of the season in a dead calm and oppressive heat, while
in the remaining months they are rolling day and night. The members of
the crew are not allowed ashore without a written permission from the
captain of the boat, and men and luggage are searched on leaving the
vessel. In addition to these objections, life on board is not unusually
made intensely disagreeable by the myriads of inch-long cockroaches,
which are attracted by and multiply rapidly on the shreds of muscle
left on the pearl shell stored in the hold. Storms are frequent on the
coast. In February, 1899, three schooners and eighty smaller vessels
were wrecked, and eleven white and four hundred colored men were
drowned.
At
the end of each day's fishing, the oysters are cleaned of submarine
growths. Sometimes this is by no means an easy task, as many of the
shells are so covered with weeds, coral, and sponge as to bear little
resemblance to oysters. After they have been scrubbed and the edges
have been chipped, they are washed and stored on deck. Early the
following morning they are opened and examined for pearls. This opening
is done carefully to avoid injury to any pearl that may be within. The
hinge of the shell is placed on the deck and a broad knife forced down
so as to sever the adductor muscle, causing the shells to spring open and permitting the removal of the soft parts. The
flesh is carefully examined, both by sight and by feeling, to locate
all pearls, which are picked out by hand and placed in a suitable
receptacle. Within the adductor muscle are found seed-pearls and small
baroques; the large pearls are found embedded in the mantle, where
their presence may be detected as soon as the shell is opened, the
pearly gleam contrasting with the light blue of the mantle. Sometimes,
though rarely, large pearls are found loose within the shell, whence
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