[Footnote 3:  Rapport de M. COSTE, Professeur d’Embryogenie, &c., Paris, 1858.]

On my arrival at Aripo, the pearl-divers, under the orders of their Adapanaar, put to sea, and commenced the examination of the banks.[1] The persons engaged in this calling are chiefly Tamils and Moors, who are trained for the service by diving for chanks.  The pieces of apparatus employed to assist the diver in his operations are exceedingly simple in their character:  they consist merely of a stone, about thirty pounds’ weight, (to accelerate the rapidity of his descent,) which is suspended over the side of the boat, with a loop attached to it for receiving the foot; and of a net-work basket, which he takes down to the bottom and fills with the oysters as he collects them.  MASSOUDI, one of the earliest Arabian geographers, describing, in the ninth century, the habits of the pearl-divers in the Persian Gulf, says that, before descending, each filled his ears with cotton steeped in oil, and compressed his nostrils by a piece of tortoise-shell.[2] This practice continues there to the present day[3]; but the diver of Ceylon rejects all such expedients; he inserts his foot in the “sinking stone” and inhales a full breath; presses his nostrils with his left hand; raises his body as high as possible above water, to give force to his descent:  and, liberating the stone from its fastenings, he sinks rapidly below the surface.  As soon as he has reached the bottom, the stone is drawn up, and the diver, throwing himself on his face, commences with alacrity to fill his basket with oysters.  This, on a concerted signal, is hauled rapidly to the surface; the diver assisting his own ascent by springing on the rope as it rises.

[Footnote 1:  Detailed accounts of the pearl fishery of Ceylon and the conduct of the divers, will be found in PERCIVAL’s Ceylon, ch. iii.:  and in CORDINER’S Ceylon, vol. ii. ch. xvi.  There is also a valuable paper on the same subject by Mr. LE BECK, in the Asiatic Researches, vol. v. p. 993; but by far the most able and intelligent description is contained in the Account of the Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon, by JAMES STEUART, Esq., Inspector of the Pearl Banks, 4to.  Colombo, 1843.]

[Footnote 2:  MASSOUDI says that the Persian divers, as they could not breathe through their nostrils, cleft the root of the ear for that purpose:  “Ils se fendaient la racine de l’oreille pour respirer; en effet, ils ne peuvent se servir pour cet objet des narines, vu qu’ils se les bouchent avec des morceaux d’ecailles de tortue marine on bien avec des morceaux de corne ayant la forme d’un fer de lance.  En meme temps ils se mettent dans l’oreille du coton trempe dans de l’huile.”—­Moroudj-al-Dzeheb, &c., REINAUD, Memoire sur l’Inde, p. 228.]

[Footnote 3:  Colonel WILSON says they compress the nose with horn, and close the ears with beeswax.  See Memorandum on the Pearl Fisheries in Persian Gulf.—­Journ.  Geogr.  Soc. 1833, vol. iii. p. 283.]