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Updated: May 23, 2025
MASSOUDI, one of the earliest Arabian geographers, describing, in the ninth century, the habits of the pearl-divers in the Persian Gulf, says that, before descending, each filled his ears with cotton steeped in oil, and compressed his nostrils by a piece of tortoise-shell.
Then, one day, there appeared against the horizon the faint outline of a line of coco-trees springing from the ocean, and by and by a white gleam of beach showed at their base as the vessel lifted to the long ocean swell, and then sank again from view; but up aloft on the brigantine's foreyard, the native pearl-divers, with their big, luminous eyes shining with excitement, gazed over and beyond the tops of the palm-trees, and saw the light-green waters of a noble lagoon that stretched northwest and south-east for fifty miles, and twenty from east to west.
The story of "The Schooner with a Past" may be heard, from the Straits eastward, with many variations. Out in the Pacific the schooner becomes a cutter, and the pearl-divers are replaced by the Black-birds of the Labour Trade. But Mr. Hugh Clifford's variation is very good.
Marie and her friends greatly increased the number and prosperity of tailors and milliners and candy-dippers and perfume-manufacturers and manicurists and hair-dressers and plumed-bird hunters and florists and cab-drivers and Irish lace-makers and Chinese silkworm tenders and violet-and-orris sachet-powder makers and matinee heroes and French nuns who embroider underwear and fur-traders and pearl-divers and other deserving persons, not forgetting the multitudes of Turks who must make nougat or perish.
Leaving the hut of the Cingalese after our adventure with the Dhahs in the forest of Ceylon, we had made our way to Trincomalee, where we had embarked upon a small sailing boat, similar in size and shape to those which may be constantly seen on the other side of the island, and which are used by the pearl-divers.
One thought occurs to me for my consolation: A race that has felt itself forced, generation after generation, to serve the truth must finally have acquired an instinct to do so, like the races of pearl-divers who by inheritance can hold their breath a phenomenally long time. At this point my granddaughter Bianca came in to see me.
It was circular, with a door of cast bronze, beautifully ornamented with reliefs of pearl-divers, tritons, nereids and other marine subjects. Inside its dome-shaped roof was lined with an intricate mosaic of bits of glass as brilliant as rubies, emeralds and sapphires, or as gold and silver.
'The pearl-divers of Persia are not more skilful. Why, we've got a fresh-water spring that comes out at the bottom of the sea. Our divers dive down and bring up the fresh water in skin bottles! Can your barbarian divers do as much?
Asgeelo or Cato, as Brandon commonly called him had made those simple preparations which are common among his class the apparatus which the pearl-divers have used ever since pearl-diving first commenced. Twelve or fifteen stones were in the boat, a flask of oil, and a sponge which was fastened around his neck. These were all that he required. Each stone weighed about thirty pounds.
It has been asserted that pearl-divers can sometimes stay under water as long as three, four, and even five minutes, but we don't believe the assertion. If the reader does, we have no hesitation in pronouncing him or her credulous. To return to Adam. We have no doubt whatever that he perhaps Eve also could dive.
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