The Cruise of the Dream Ship by Ralph Stock

Author:Ralph Stock [Stock, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anboco
Published: 2017-04-09T22:00:00+00:00

Shark, pearl diver

And this is the law of the group—infringed, circumvented, broken, but still the law—that although under French Government, the Paumotus and all they produce belong to the Paumotans.

Still further to protect the native, diving apparatus is banned throughout the group. The oyster, as he brings it from the water, is the diver's property. He must open the shell aboard his canoe before touching land, remove the flesh, and, after testing it for pearls (usually by kneading it so thoroughly between finger and thumb as to crush the life out of it), throw it back into the lagoon to propagate its species. Should he find a pearl, it is his also.

It is then up to the cloud of "mosquitoes" before mentioned to get both shell and pearl out of him as best it can. One can imagine the buzzing and biting that ensue.

From the buyer's point of view, the sooner and the deeper he gets a good diver into his debt the better. He then has some hold. Consequently, he spoon-feeds his selected divers like the infants that they are. Tinned delicacies of all sorts, Prince Albert suits of unbelievable thickness and cut, silk socks, and stockings are a good diver's for the asking during the closed season.

With shell at one thousand dollars a ton in Philadelphia (the largest consumer at the present time), and pearls soaring to apparently limitless heights, all will be well when work starts.

And the diver? From long experience of "mosquitoes," he is by no means slow. Shortly before the season opens he is presented with a bill that would cause most of us to register apoplexy. He looks at it, grins, and proceeds to dive. He also proceeds to make caches of shell on the floor of the lagoon, only bringing up half of what he collects in payment of his debts. At night he retrieves his cache and sells for cash to the smaller "mosquitoes" who infest the beach. As for pearls, from the moment the diver's finger and thumb encounter foreign matter in the flesh of the oyster, he becomes about as communicative on the subject as his catch. Should the truth leak out, his find will promptly be confiscated in payment of his everlasting debts, or the wily pearl-buyer will use threats of exposure to reduce the price.

No, the diver, if he is up to snuff, will work his passage to Papeete on a schooner, sell to a Chinaman, who neither asks questions nor tells tales, and proceed to enjoy himself according to his lights.

Blossoming into a Prince Albert suit, a red tie, and silk socks, he will hire a car, load it up with lady friends and execrable rum, and vanish into thin air for a fortnight, at the end of which time he has somehow contrived to get rid of all he possessed and is perfectly prepared to return to his atolls and his debts. He has lived like a white man and cheated the "mosquitoes"; what more can

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