Improbable tales have been told of the capacity which these men acquire of remaining for prolonged periods under water.  The divers who attended on this occasion were amongst the most expert on the coast, yet not one of them was able to complete a full minute below.  Captain Steuart, who filled for many years the office of Inspector of the Pearl Banks, assured me that he had never known a diver to continue at the bottom longer than eighty-seven seconds, nor to attain a greater depth than thirteen fathoms; and on ordinary occasions they seldom exceeded fifty-five seconds in nine fathom water[1].

[Footnote 1:  RIBEYRO says that a diver could remain below whilst two credos were being repeated:  “Il s’y tient l’espace de deux credo.”—­Lib. i. ch. xxii. p. 169.  PERCIVAL says the usual time for them to be under water was two minutes, but that some divers stayed four or five, and one six minutes,—­Ceylon p. 91; LE BECK says that in 1797 he saw a Caffre boy from Karical remain down for the space of seven minutes.—­Asiat.  Res vol. v. p. 402.]

The only precaution to which the Ceylon diver devotedly resorts, is the mystic ceremony of the shark-charmer, whose exorcism is an indispensable preliminary to every fishery.  His power is believed to be hereditary; nor is it supposed that the value of his incantations is at all dependent upon the religious faith professed by the operator, for the present head of the family happens to be a Roman Catholic.  At the time of our visit this mysterious functionary was ill and unable to attend; but he sent an accredited substitute, who assured me that although he himself was ignorant of the grand and mystic secret, the mere fact of his presence, as a representative of the higher authority, would be recognised and respected by the sharks.

Strange to say, though the Gulf of Manaar abounds with these hideous creatures, not more than one well authenticated accident[1] is known to have occurred from this source during any pearl fishery since the British have had possession of Ceylon.  In all probability the reason is that the sharks are alarmed by the unusual number of boats, the multitude of divers, the noise of the crews, the incessant plunging of the sinking stones, and the descent and ascent of the baskets filled with shells.  The dark colour of the divers themselves may also be a protection; whiter skins might not experience an equal impunity.  Massoudi relates that the divers of the Persian Gulf were so conscious of this advantage of colour, that they were accustomed to blacken their limbs, in order to baffle the sea monsters.[2]

[Footnote 1:  CORDINER’S Ceylon, vol. ii p. 52.]

[Footnote 2:  “Ils s’enduisaient les pieds et les jambes d’une substance noiratre, atin de faire peur aux monstres marins, que, sans cela, seraient tentes de les devorer.”—­Moroudj-al-Dzekeb, REINAUD, Mem. sur l’Inde, p. 228.]