ing; and, although the sea breeze was still lagging lazily behind, the fleet pushed shorewards, the boatmen plying their oars for a few miles. An hour later the breeze came up from the southwest-fitfully at first-then steadily up went the great spiderlegged bamboo masts and the wide winged sails and the sharpnosed boats slipped noiselessly landward.

Our approach to the shore was signalised by a gun; thousands were again on the beach awaiting our coming, and anxious to hear of our success. As we drew near, a long, wild shout rent the air; then a pause. No reply was given from the boats, the spirits of all were depressed by the accident, not so much from sympathy with the poor sufferer, as from a feeling that the accident at so early a stage was a bad omen.

The whole of the fleet having reached the shore, a party of Malay riflemen and Peons cleared an open space between them and the crowd on the beach, so as to allow the unloading of the boats, which was at once commenced. The oysters were divided on the sandy shore, into four equal parts, three of which went to the Government, or the renter, as the case might be; the remaining fourth was shared amongst the boatmen, the divers, the Tandal and the boat-owner; the divers receiving twice as much as the boatmen, and the owner rather more than the divers. The Government oysters were carried up in baskets to large bamboo enclosures, called Cottoos, where they were kept until sold by auction on the following day. The native shares of the fish were disposed of in a similar way; though sometimes they were retained by their owners on their own account, and the pearls found in them sold afterwards.

I did not go off to the next day's fishing, being desirous of witnessing the oyster auction; the boats, however, went as before,

the Shark Charmer having woven a spell of extra potency; which, it was said, would astonish the marine monsters, and secure their jaws as effectually as if fastened by Chubb's detector locks. The biddings were carried on with an eagerness almost amounting to frenzy. The oysters were offered in lots of one thousand, taken from the Cottoos indiscriminately. Some fine looking fellows went as high as six pounds the thousand; many, however, were knocked down for half that price, and not a few realised no more than fifteen shillings a lot, about the price of ordinary native oysters in England. Had the bidders believed that their admission into Paradise depended on their obtaining a few lots of these oysters, their mad excitement could scarcely have been exceeded. One old man, a Moorman, I particularly noticed. His entire suit of wearing apparel could hardly have been worth one of the oysters he had been bidding for. Avarice was deeply marked in his sharp features; and when he at last succeeded in obtaining one lot, I thought he would have gone wild with joy. He leaped about, danced, laughed, and sung bits of old musty ditties. Nor was he quiet until he had removed his heap to a miserable little shed hard by. There he sat down, close beside his lot of fish, and burying his head between his hands with the elbows resting on his knees, remained contemplating his little fortune, longing, yet half afraid, to open some of them. I left him thus gazing on the oysters, as though each living thing held his own life and immortality within its rocky shell.

There were many wealthy traders there from all parts of India; but many more had with difficulty scraped together sums varying from a dozen pagodas to a dozen dollars; men who had purchased or borrowed the means of bidding at this intoxicating

auction; men who had left their famished families without the means of obtaining a mouthful of rice; who had torn the gold bangles and ear-rings from their wives and children, and melted them into ingots, to deal in the maddening trade of Aripo. Some returned home rich beyond their expectations; some with little fortunes; but many went back ruined, beggared, and broken-hearted, to repay their loans or pledges; while some fled in terror to strange lands-having lost the means of replacing monies taken by them from sources of trust-being ruined in means and reputation. All this happens at every Pearl Fishery, and is not to be prevented, save by offering the fish in larger lots, which, though it might not prove quite so remunerative to the Government, would save much evil and suffering.

No further accidents from sharks happened whilst I was on the "Banks ;" but in truth, at the end of the first week of the fishery, I was glad to avail myself of the opportunity of returning to Colombo in a Government boat. The novelty of the scene had worn off; one day's operations were precisely those of another. The scenes of drunken riot and dissipated phrenzy were daily becoming more violent and disgusting. Added to this, the intolerable stench from the accumulating myriads of oysters hastening to decomposition, rendered a residence on shore, within a mile or two of the Cottoos, quite intolerable to one who did not in any way partake of the excitement of the lottery in pearls.

The oysters are left in heaps for about thirty days, at the end of which time they become perfectly decomposed. In that state they are placed in a large canoe, and well but carefully washed with plenty of water, so as to remove the rotten portion of the fish, leaving the pearls and the shells in the water. Some of the more needy purchasers have not patience to await this process,

but at once proceed to work by opening the fresh oysters, and so learn their good fortune or their beggary. So eager are all to make money at these auctions, that the Cottoos, or bamboo enclosures and the washing-places, are all offered for sale at the expiration of the cleansing processes, and eagerly purchased by those who hope to discover in the sandy ground, some pearls which may have escaped the care of the former occupants. This they often succeed in doing.

Some conception may be formed of the immense masses of oysters which at these times lay putrifying on the burning sands of Aripo, when I mention that each boat will bring on shore, in one trip, from ten to twenty thousand of fish, making a daily total of from two to four millions for the whole fleet. The extremely hazardous results of these auctions may be gathered from the fact, that whilst in some instances as many as a hundred pearls of various weights and value are found in one oyster of large size, one hundred oysters may be opened without finding in them a single pearl.

The natives of India have a singular belief, with regard to the origin of pearls:* it is, that those beautiful concretions are congealed dew-drops, which Buddha, in certain months, showers upon the earth, and are caught by the oysters whilst floating on the waters to breathe. The priests-ever alive to their own interests -keep up the strange belief, and make it the pretext for exacting from the divers and boatmen of their faith what are termed 'charity oysters," for the use of Buddha, who, when thus propitiated, according to their showing, will render the fish more rich in pearls in future seasons.

66

*The true explanation of the formation of pearls in the oyster is to be found in our first Volume, pp. 466-67.

W

Our Phantom Ship.

JAPAN.

E may as well go by the North-west Passage as by any other, on our phantom voyage to Japan. Behring's Straits shall be the door by which we enter the Pacific Ocean. We are soon flitting between islands; from the American peninsula of Aliaska runs a chain of islands, the Aleutian,—which lie sprinkled upon our track, like a train of crumbs dropped by some Tom Thumb among the giants, who may aforetime have been led astray, not in the wood, but on the water. If he landed on Kamtchatka, from the point of that peninsula he made a fresh start, dropping more crumbs,—the Kurile Islands,―till he dropped some larger pieces, and a whole slice for the main land of Japan, before he again reached the continent and landed finally on the Gorea. In sailing by these islands, we have abundant reason to observe that they indicate main lines of volcanic action. From Behring's Strait, in fact, we enter the Pacific, between two great batteries of subterranean fire. Steering for Japan, we pass, on the Kamtchatkan coast, the loftiest volcano in the old world, Kamtchatskaja (fifteen thousand seven hundred and sixty-three feet). Following the course of the volcanic chain of Kurile Islands, of which the most northerly belong to Russia, the southern Kuriles are the first land we encounter subject to Japan. We do not go ashore here, to be sent to prison like Golownin, for we are content, at present, to remeinber that the natives of these islands are the hairiest among men. We sail on, too polite to outrage Japanese propriety by landing,