Expert Divers at Singapore.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 456, 22 March 1890, Page 3

Expert Divers at Singapore.

By Thomas W. Knox. [Copyright 1889 by the Author.] The people of most tropical countries bordering on the sea are generally very skilful in diving and swimming, and their performances in this line are apt bo astonish the strangers from Engisnd or the United States. In the Islands of the South Pacific the natives, and especially the women, will swim two or three miles with little fatigue, or apparently none at all,and will easily distance the best swimmers from temperate regions. All through the Malay Archi peiago this peculiarity of the people is apparent,and a credulous person might be ex cused for believing that the Malay race is amphibious and has webbed feet and hand like the duck or goose. The most skilful diving and swimming that I ever witnessed in any part of the world was at Singapore, the capital of the British province known as the Straits Settlements. Singapore is only eighty miles north of the equator, and consequently is one of the most sub-tropical of cities. Overcoats are unknown there except as curiosities, and the beds in the hotels have no covering beyond a pair of sheets and the traveller generally restricts the use of these to the one that he lies upon. The natives wear very little clothing other than a wisp of cloth around the loins and a smile or a scowl on their faces ; when one of them wishes to put on style he dons a shirt and thinks himself a ‘ swell ’ of the first degree. At the landing place of the mail steamers when I was departing from Singapore, there was a swarm of divers surrounding the vessel on the water side and affording great amusement to the passengers by their antics in the water. The men were dressed in the loin-cloth already mentioned, and had a veneering of cocoanut oil on the visible parts of their bodies to keep the water from soaking in. As for the boys they wore nothing whatever, not even the smile or the cocoanut oil which appertained to their elders, probably for the reason that oil was dear and the youthful skin was supposed to be impervious to moisture. They were in boats of the dug-out pattern, i.e. hewn from the trunk of a tree, and some of the craft were _ barely large enough to contain a single individual. The way in which they managed to get into these boats

from the water, evinced their skill quite as much as did the diving; an American or Englishman, unless he had had long practice, would have upset the boat to a certainty, but these brown-skinned Malays sprang in with the utmost ease, and without the least apparent risk of an overturn. We began by throwing copper coins, which they first refused, at least the men did, but the boys went after them, and so the men were obliged to follow suit or get nothing. When only a few divers are about, the others happening to be away on fishing excursions or other occupations, the men refuse absolutely to dive for copper, basing their refusal on the ground that they cannot see the dark metal in the water. This is a trick to induce the offer of the more valuable coin ; if any copper is tossed to them they decline to touch it, but gather it in as soon as the steamer has gone. Whenever a coin was thrown, half, a dozen men and boys would dive for it; nine times out of ten it was caught before it reached the bottom, and very often it did not get a yard below the surface before it was in somebody’s hand, and immediately transferred to his mouth. The water was thirty feet deep and very clear ; the bottom could be seen with ease, and a small object lying upon it was readily perceptible. Sometimes some of us attracted the attention of the divers in one direction, while another of the passengers dropped a few coppers overboard elsewhere so that they could get to the bottom. . When the money was safely down, its position was indicated, and instantly they began a lively race for it. A dozen were in the water at once and there was a spectacle of rapidly wiggling legsjin the direction of the prize. We looted for a fight of some kind under the water,but there was nothing of the sort. The hand that first closed upon coin was allowed to keep it, and nobody remained long .in the haunt of the fishes. We did not think to take the time of any of the divers, but we thought some of them remained below for not less than 60 or 70 seconds on several occasions. Residents of Singapore say thes.e divers have been known to hold their breath and remain below for fully 2 minutes, but I have no documentary evidence on this point. It used to be said that the pearl divers of Ceylon could remain 6 minutes under water. Admiral Hood, of the British navy, timed them, carefully with his watch, and did not find one of them remaining below for more than one minute. Instances of divers staying under water for two minutes are upon record, and one traveller, Franchere, author of. “A Voyage to the N. W. coast of America, tells of some divers in the Hawaiian Islands whom he timed, and found that they stayed 4 minutes below the waves.

As our steamer moved away from ths dock at Singapore, one of the passengers took a double handful of copper coin and scattered it as though he were sowing wheat in a field. All the boats of the divers were emptied of their occupants in an instant, and as our speed increased, we saw the men and boys coming to the surface, each with one or more coins between his teeth. This was our last sight of them, but we had reason to remember their exploits, from the circumstance that until we reached Point de Galle there was a scarcity of copper coins on board the steamer, which amounted practically to a famine of small change.