Page 25 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

which they released when they got to the bottom, and the oil, floating
it was not in the water, then changed sides again for the next stroke.
through the water, provided more light. Yet another of his stories was
of divers, working below, ‘howling like dogs’ to connnunciate with the
men on board the dhow. I never discovered any foundation for these
tales.
The crew consisted of divers, pullers, who worked the diving ropes
and manned the oars, a couple of ship’s boys, a cook, the captain’s mate,
who was a cousin of the captain, and the captain himself. He was a lean,
grizzled man, a typical Arab seaman, accustomed to a hard life, but he
had an air of authority. The divers, who looked thin and weedy, told me
that when diving they reduced their food to the minimum, but the pullers
were stalwart specimens; many of them were negroes with tremendous
chest and arm development. The divers worked stripped, except for
a loincloth or a very short pair of shorts made of dark material. Any
colour, they said, would attract dangerous fish. Their most dangerous
enemies in the sea were poisonous jelly-fish and stinging rays. During the
jelly-fish season, in June, they wore cotton garments covering the body,
to avoid being stung. They rarely had trouble from sharks and barracuda,
probably owing to the activity in the sea around the dhows. One of the
early Arab writers said that the pearl divers used to blacken the soles of
their feet, which are naturally light in colour, and sometimes the whole
body, with soot, to keep off‘sea monsters’, but I never heard of this being
done.
After a long discussion between the captain, his mate and some of
the divers, it was decided where the day’s diving would begin, and
the anchor was hauled up. Everything on board the dhow was done
to the accompaniment of singing, stamping and hand-clapping, especially
when the men were at the oars. As they heaved the heavy, square-bladed
oars through the water, keeping excellent time, their voices rose and then
descended in a sound like a long drawn-out groan, but many of their
diving songs were lively and tuneful.
It was an exhilarating sensation to be on board the great dhow as her
prow cut through the smooth water, sometimes scattering shoals of little > drank a little coffee and huddled round the fire which burned in a fire-box
fish as she moved. The deck was in deep shadow, shaded from the sun by
canvas awnings woven in the villages of Bahrain, which made it difficult
to take photographs. It was crowded with dark, glistening naked bodies,
moving rhythmically to the swing of the oars; as the men heaved they
shouted and stamped. There were two men to each oar and they rowed
standing. Having pushed the heavy oar through the water, the
rowers
rapidly moved to the other side of the oar, pushed it back, more easily as
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V.
The whole action was carried out in perfect unison. Occasionally one
cau ght a gleam from eyes or white teeth and one heard, above the sing­
ing, the voice of the mate giving orders. The water in the shadow of the
ship was a vivid blue-green; beyond, the sea stretched flatly, a hot, glaring
pale blue, merging, without any visible horizon, into the sky. When we
reached the-place where diving was to be done the anchor was lowered,
the oars were lashed to the rowlocks so that they projected horizontally
above the water, and diving began. I could sec nothing whatever to
indicate that below the surface there was a promising pearl bed.
Each diver had two ropes. One of them, on which he descended, had
a stone weight on it, the other was fastened to a string bag into which he
put his shells. On his nose he wore a clip, like a clothes-peg, and his fingers
and big toes were provided with leather guards to protect him when he
walked on the sharp coral on the sea bed and pulled the oysters off the
rocks. The puller, standing on the gunwale, let down the diver on the
weighted rope and then pulled it up again. The diver collected as many
shells as he could, eight to twelve shells seemed to be the average number,
put them in his bag and signalled to his puller, who drew him up by the
rope which was fastened to the bag. From the deck I could see the divers
rising rapidly through the clear water, holding the ropes which the pullers
drew up. They stayed submerged for just under a minute, but when some
of them saw that I was timing them with a watch, they remained below
for almost two minutes. The captain told me that sometimes they worked
banks which were twelve fathoms below the surface (seventy-two feet),
but more often they dived in about six fathoms.
When the divers came alongside the pullers took the bags from them
and the divers rested in the water, holding on to a rope. When all of them
had surfaced, the pullers, chanting and stamping in unison, advanced to
the heap of shells on the deck and emptied on to it the contents of the
bags. Contrary to general belief it is never known which individual finds
a particular pearl. After ten dives the men came on board for a rest. They
on deck while another relay of divers took their places; this continued
throughout the day. Though the surface temperature was extremely hot, »'
I could see that the divers were cold after working in the sunless depths of
the sea.
The captain produced the usual coffee and a tin of sliced peaches in a
plate, a difficult food to eat with one’s fingers. After this meal I scrambled
along the slippery deck, barefooted and wearing only a pair of shorts. I
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