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Updated: May 3, 2025
Then, besides the pearl-shell I bought nearly five hundredweight of splendid hawkbill turtle-shell, giving but two or three sticks of tobacco for an entire carapace of thirteen plates weighing between two and three pounds, and, as you know, hawkbill shell is worth eight dollars a pound in Hongkong, and much more in London or Hamburg."
They are on the spot, and week by week, blown in by monsoon or southeast trade, the schooners come to anchor, cargo'd with copra, ivory nuts, pearl-shell, hawksbill turtle, and thirst. It is a very hard job at Goboto. That is why the pay is twice that on other stations, and that is why the company selects only courageous and intrepid men for this particular station.
But that chord of jocund colour which may fitly be married to the smiles of light, the blues which are found in laughing eyes, the pinks that tinge the cheeks of early youth, and the warm yet silvery tones of healthy flesh, mingle as in a marvellous pearl-shell on his pictures.
The belt was removed, and on the purse being fumbled with, several small pearls fell out. The dead eyes stared defiantly up into the sky, the face whitened, and the stains of blood seemed to settle on it. A harsh sound came as an electric shock, and I heard as from afar off Piln-goi shout: "You bin sleep long time, boss! Big low water. We fella look out pearl-shell!"
He had, he told us, bought the Francesco at Sourabaya about three years before, and after making several trading voyages between Manila and the Ladrone Islands voyages which did not pay as well as he had anticipated he fell in with the master of a Hobart Town whaler, who strongly advised him to go farther eastwards and southwards, particularly about the Admiralty Group and their vicinity, where a few colonial vessels were doing very well, trading for coconut oil, beche-de-mer, sandalwood, tortoise-shell and pearl-shell.
It was not that he was wearied of the monotony of his existence on Nukufetau that had led Harry to bid his wife and two children farewell, but because that he had heard rumours of the richness in pearl-shell and turtle-shell of the far distant isles of the Pelew Group, and desired to go there and satisfy himself as to the truth of these sailors' tales; for he was a steady, honest man, although he had run away from his ship, a Sydney sandal-wooding vessel; and during his fifteen years' residence on Nukufetau he had made many thousands of dollars by selling coconut oil to the Sydney trading ships, and provisions to the American whalers.
This boy has supplied samples of hooks made by himself with the aid of files, etc., in imitation of the old style, being careful to explain that the old men made them much better than any one could in these degenerate days of steel. Two of these modern hooks bound to bark lines are illustrated. What was the origin of the peculiar pattern of the pearl-shell fish-hooks?
When the rain came down too hard, Oscar would stay within the cottage, and study his book, or watch his pearl-shell, or sometimes go into the bedroom and look at the things his mother had left behind her. They were very ordinary things, and there were very few of them; but they were dearer to Oscar than anything else.
They report, however, that they saw pearl-shell ornaments, and even pearls, worn by the savages; which so excites Golding's imagination, that he insists on our attempting further communication with the people. Finding at length the opening into the lagoon, we approach the mouth, the surf breaking over the rocks on either side with great violence.
Not jest copra an' pearl-shell, but cotton an' rubber." "A king and his kingdom," suggested the girl. "Aye, an' mebbe a queen to go with it," replied Lund, his eyes wide open in a look that made the girl flush and Rainey feel the hidden issue that he felt was bound to come, rising to the surface. "That's a man's life," went on Lund.
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