waters,
their cheap labor making them successful competitors of the armored
divers. In arranging with these, the pearling company commonly
grub-stakes a crew, pays a stipulated sum per hundredweight for the
shells, and bargains for the pearls. If the fishermen are not satisfied
with the price offered for these, they are at liberty to sell to other
buyers under certain restrictions.
Nude
diving is confined to the warm months, beginning about the middle of
May and continuing until October. Owing to the cloudy or muddy
condition of the water in the gulf, the nude diver can not inspect the
bottom from the surface and select the best oysters before descending,
nor can he work satisfactorily at depths greater than seven or eight
fathoms. While the work is hard, it is more remunerative than the
average branch of labor in this region.
Each
day the boats deliver their catch of oysters at the fishing-camps or on
board the receiving vessels. After they have been freed from marine
growths and refuse, the mollusks are opened and searched for pearls.
This operation is performed by trusted employees, usually elderly men
who have become physically disqualified for diving, and who, seated
together at a low table, work under the watchful eyes of overseers. A
knife is introduced between the valves of the oyster, the adductor
muscle is severed, and the valves are separated by breaking the hinge.
The animal is removed from the shell and carefully examined with the
eyes and the fingers, and then squeezed in the hands to locate any
pearl which may be concealed in the organs or tissues. The debris is
passed to other persons, who submit it to further examinations. A man
may work all day long and find only a few seed-pearls, but occasionally
there is the excitement of discovering a beautiful gem.
In
some localities the flesh of the pearl-oyster is a source of profit
through its sale to Chinamen, who dry and otherwise prepare it for sale
among their countrymen in Mexico and America, as well as in the Orient.
Frequently the large adductor muscle is dried for food, making
excellent soup-stock, and, indeed, it is quite palatable when stewed.
It
is difficult to approximate the output of the Mexican pearl fisheries,
other than the pearl shell, because the dealers place a merely nominal
value on the pearls in their invoices when sending them to Europe, an
invoice of $500 sometimes representing gems valued in Paris at several
thousand dollars. Furthermore, it is difficult to obtain satisfactory
information from the pearling companies, owing, presumably, to the fear
of developing greater competition. According to the estimates at La
Paz, the local value of the pearl-yield now approximates $250,000
annually, and the value of the same over the counters in Europe and
America probably exceeds one million dollars.
