WON FROM THE SEA.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 308, 3 October 1929, Page 3

WON FROM THE SEA.

: PEARLS FOR MY LADY. . Dangerous Occupation. t j Divers Face Death. The common pearl button is so familiar to our daily life that we little think of the dangers and hardships that are undergone to provide civilisation with this very necessary thing. “ My Ladye,” when she adorns her neck with a string of pearls, lpves no thought of the manner in which they were won from the sea, writes Bernard C. Ryder, F.R.G.S., In the Sun News-Pictorial. It may not be commonly known Unit West Australia supplies threequarters of the world’s output of pearls, and that Broome, lying high near the Buccaneer Archipelago, is the source of the main supply. Broome boasts a population of some 2000, comprising Japanese, Malays, ICopangers, half-castes of varying j hue, Englishmen, and foreigners. It Is a township typical of the East, and. j a langour that characterises Eastern ' ports pervades it. I Over 1000 Japanese crowd into a ! space in the Japanese quarter that j would not house more than a few , dozen Europeans, and all the weird smells of the Orient assail the nos- 1 trils, and all the jargon offends the cars in this little Japan. It is a strange' picture, this, to be found in Australia, for down the coast the sands look white in the tropical sun, and camel teams, with their turbaned Afghan drivers come rolling up with great bales of sandalwood for shipment to the East. The shop fronts are adorned with strange Japanese writings, and men come running up with that queer gait of the East, swinging baskets on a long pole, as they did in Japan hundreds of years ago. Along the road a group of aboriginal prisoners is working, guarded by a white policeman armed with a rifle. The prisoners are shackled together with chains like natives in the Congo. Luggers at Work. At the wharf are piled cases of pearl shell, and in the distance the pearling luggers can be seen combing the sea bed for its shell. Strange trees and flowers grow in this forgotten comer, great baobaob trees

with their strange bottle-like shape. A butcher bird utters its tantalising cry from a nearby tree, while a flock of white cockatoos scream as they fly overhead. On the mud-flats luggers lie on their sides, with sea birds perched on their rotting planking, and an aboriginal “ lubra ” drags her weary feet along the beach with a string of fish she has caught. Yet pearling is one j of the most important industries of ; the West. *

There are two fishing grounds that of the nor’west, extending from the vicinity of North-West Cape to beyond Admiralty Gulf, and a smaller one at Shark Bay. At the former the large white mother-of-pearl shell, known scientificially as Margaretifera, is taken by divers using modem diving equipment; but at Shark Bay the smaller and less valuable mother-of-pearl oysters, known as M. imbricata, are gathered by dredges or taken by hand from the shallower banks.

The industry dates back to the early fifties, and during the past ten years pearls with a stated value of over £500,000 have been won, while (' the pearl shell fished was worth £2,000,000. Just now the industry is I declining, and many of the pearlers: • have abandoned their luggers, owing | to the falling off in the demand. The [ price of mother-of-pearl has dropped i to about £l7O a ton, which scarcely • covers the cost of raising it, while | the high cost of production, including j the higher wages for divers and crew, leaves little or no margin of profit. Many of the" pearlers are moving their luggers to Darwin, as the shell is stated to be mostly worked out in the vicinity of Broome. The boats used are luggers averaging from 10 to 15 tons, and are ketch rigged. The diving gear comprises two complete dresses, piping, and air compressor, driven by a kerosene engine. Getting the shell. The life of a pearler is hard, for he is often at sea in his lugger for weeks at a time, his only companions being the Japanese divers and aboriginal crew. Sailing along the coast one may see the divers at work. They are dragged along the sea bed until they reach a patch of pearl shell. Then the boat is signalled and the haul raised. The shallower waters have been worked bare and the div- j ers at times have to go to great | depths for their hauls. There are j dangers connected with deep work- ] ing, and divers are often afflicted

with paralysis and sometimes brought to the surface in a state of collapse. If the diver is working at a distant spot, the “ compression ” cure cannot be applied, and the treatment is remarkable. He is returned to the water and lowered to the depth he was working at, and then gradually “ staged ” to the surface, the process often taking hours.

j Quite a number recover from the j effects of the paralysis, but in Broome there is a cemetery where lie I many hundreds of such victims —row : upon row of them, mostly Japanese ,in their early twenties. The compression chamber adjoins the hospital at Broome, and divers are rushed there when paralysis attacks them should they be near port. They are placed in the chamber and air is pumped in until it reaches the pressure at which they were working. Then the pressure is gradually eased until the men can survive normal pressure. During the time they are in the chamber food is passed in through an airtight door and they lie there until the dangerous symptoms havq passed.

The cemetery at Broome is quaint, for on the graves are hundreds of sticks of incense and saucers that have contained food. Some of the graves bear the photograph of the unfortunate diver, while others may have a photograph of the lugger on which he worked. All are adorned with the quaint characters of the East, and surrounding the graves arc usually hundreds of bottles. The Big Blow.

One monument in the Broome cemetery is erected to the memory of over 200 divers who lost their lives during a big “ blow ” some years ago. At one period of the year the Japanese gather together and fashion little boats out of wood and paper, which they light with Japanese lanterns. They are then sent adrift at night, and make a wonderful sight as the hundreds of tiny craft sail away, the lights burning for some time. It is a pretty custom and said to ensure a fruitful season.

There is occasionally a pleasanter side to pearling, for luggers often sail into a friendly bay, allowing divers and others to land and replenish their larders with turtles and eggs. At the same time they may indulge in a little beach-combing for trochas shell and beche-de-mer (sea slug), which is greatly prized as an edible delicacy. But it is mostly a hard life with an uncertain reward.