Page 26 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

tried what it felt like to take a pull at an oar and was allowed to hoist up were popular in South America; white; black, which is the trade name
one of the divers, under the close supervision of his puller. When the
diver surfaced he was very astonished to sec me at the end of his rope,
instead of his black companion.
Tied on every spar and rail were bundles done up in bright-coloured
cloths containing the divers’ belongings, and hanging over the stem were
fish traps and fishing tackle. The traps were round baskets made of palm-
sticks or wire; they were baited and let down to the sea bed and brought
up by the divers, usually with half a dozen excellent fish in them. Squids,
or cuttle-fish, were often caught and greatly esteemed. The divers’ menu
was fish, rice and dried dates; they also ate dried limes, which kept off
scurvy. It was a monotonous diet. I had loaded my launch with baskets of
fresh dates and I left some of these when I said good-bye to the captain
and his crew. After visiting two or three more dhows we sighted a smart
little motor dhow which belonged to a pearl merchant, so we decided to
pay him a visit.
As we approached his ‘yacht’ we saw him leaving one of the diving
dhows in his gaily painted gig, rowed by two servants with a man
holding a large black umbrella over his master’s head to keep off the sun.
Upper-class Arabs in Bahrain make more fuss about the sun than any
European. Once I was with the Shaikh in his country palace, on a hot
summer’s day, when he noticed that the sentry in the courtyard was
standing in the sun. He sent a message to the sentry ordering him to con­
fine his beat to the shady side of the building. I used to work in my
garden on summer afternoons, wearing only shorts, which at first was
considered very strange, even for ‘mad dogs and Englishmen’, but soon
; the Arabs became accustomed to my ways.
The pearl merchant was a portly, prosperous-looking man, in spotless
white robes, the antithesis of the captain of the pearling dhow. The deck
of his launch was carpeted with Persian-rugs and provided with cushions.
Along the side were rolls of bedding and porous earthenware jars of water
hung on the rails. Coffee was served by a servant, followed by a large
tray containing dishes of tinned pineapple, biscuits and a sticky yellow
sweetmeat from Muscat. We were urged to stay for a meal, but we made
our excuses as time did not allow us to stay. Several live chickens, tied in
a bunch by their legs, suggested what the meal would'have consisted of.
The merchant produced the pearls which he had bought, wrapped in
little bundles of red twill. One or two fme large pearls were in a tin
filled with minute seed pearls. These, he said, preserved the lustre of the
big pearls. There were pearls of many colours: golden yellow, which
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for gun-metal blue pearls; and pink, which are white with a rosy glow,
these being the most sought after of all. We discussed pearls and diving.
Like farmers the men in the pearl trade are never satisfied with the
markets or the weather, but even this merchant was enthusiastic over a
wonderful pearl which had recently been found. Later I was shown it by
the man who bought it. The pearl, perfect in colour, shape and lustre,
stood about an inch high and was sold to a well-known American lady
in Paris, after changing hands several times, for £15,000. It was the finest
pearl found in the memory of man and the price was the highest known
to have been paid for one pearl.
I told the pearl merchant that in Europe people ate oysters and
regarded them as a delicacy. He declared that nobody, unless starving,
would cat them in the Gulf. I said I had read, in a description of pearl-
diving by Captain Fryer, who wrote at the end of the seventeenth
century, that ‘Oysters in the Gulph are the next best to the British’. I
cannot vouch for this as I only once ate an oyster and I never wish to
sample one again! I learned later that oysters found near Muscat, where
there are no pearl banks, are sometimes eaten by Europeans.
The merchant was very proud of his launch, it was the first season
that he had used it. The year before, an enterprising buyer visited the fleet
in a dhow with an engine. There was a protest from all the other buyers
who claimed, rightly, that he would have an unfair advantage over them.
No buyer may go on to a pearling dhow while another buyer is on board,
so when there was news of a big pearl being found the buyers raced to
the banks to be first on the scene. The Shaikh ordered the enterprising
merchant to discontinue using his launch, at the same time announcing
that next season anyone who wished to might use a launch.
We parted from the pearl merchant and set off for Bahrain, stopping
on the way back at one of the shallower pearl banks where the policemen,
who had brought their diving kit with them, did a little amateur diving.
Not being a proficient diver myself I did not attempt to go down. They
brought up quite a number of shells and found in them two or three little
pearls, worth a few rupees. Anyone can dive for pearls in the Gulf, pro-
• vided that he uses no mechanical apparatus and that he takes out a pearling
licence. It was evening when we sighted Jebel Dukhan, the flat-topped
mountain in Bahrain, and by the time we reached the pier there were
lights bobbing on the masts of the dhows which were anchored off the
town.
As I got to know them well I used often to visit the pearl merchants
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