Pearl River

“ Pearl Harbor, the strategic keystone of the whole group. ‘Puu’? What’s that? Ah-ha! Puuloa! Puuloa or Pearl River entrance to the harbor! Sure as guns—that’s it! ‘Bet’ means ‘Between’! ‘ar’ must be ‘March’!”
On another sheet of paper he quickly copied out the fragments, and began filling in the connecting words as fast as he could locate them. The inscription now read:
Di Min Mar.12-27, 191 Between ua ill, a Puuloa or Pearl River Entrance of Oahu. ”

“ The city extends to about a distance of four miles on the banks of the Pearl River, and fully a hundred thousand people live in boats along the river front. The families occupying these sampans will average at least four individuals; a man and wife with two children,—frequently there are half a dozen of the latter. ”

“ In many instances farm-hands are there who have abandoned their crops, mechanics who have left steady jobs, railway men who have taken a lay-off, teachers, merchants, all eager and expecting to find a fortune. In some localities, pearl fishing has been used as an attraction in big picnic advertisements, and has drawn larger crowds than a public orator.
The mollusks are removed from the river bottoms in various ways and by many forms of apparatus. In the shallow streams the fishermen simply wade out in the water and pick up the shells by hand. ”

“ In the river mussels of Canada, and especially in those from the Province of Quebec, and the Ungava Region, pearls are occasionally found. These are usually white and of good luster. They are not the object of systematic search, but in the aggregate many are secured by Indians and Eskimos, and some by the trappers and fishermen who operate from Quebec and Montreal. A number, weighing from one to sixty-five grains each, were shown at the Colonial Exhibition in London in 1886, and received favorable notice. ”

“ A large number of choice pearls weighing over thirty grains each were found in the vicinity of Prairie du Chien and McGregor. Within a river length of one hundred miles in that region, the fishermen in 1904 gathered pearls which ultimately sold for $300,000. It is therefore apparent that the returns vary greatly in the different regions; nevertheless, even in the less productive localities fine pearls are sometimes found, which contribute to make the industry a profitable one. ”

“ When washing out the dead animals, a close watch is kept for loose pearls, which are always the finest, while those attached to the shells are removed by pincers or a hammer. In 1889 in 22 days 50 divers brought up 11,000,000 oysters. River-pearls are found in freshwater shells in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Russia, Germany, Canada, the United States and China. The chief river-pearl fisheries in the United States are in the streams of the Mississippi Valley; in Wisconsin, Iowa, Kentucky, Ohio and Arkansas. ”

“ NOW all this hatred gathered in the elder son and even the mother did not know how deep it was until a certain day when out it came, bursting forth like a river dammed behind a dyke and swollen with waters from small secret sources that men do not know, so that when it breaks they are astonished because none knew how it had been with that river all the days when it had seemed the same.
It was at the time of the rice harvest at the end of a summer when all must labor hard and heavily upon the land from dawn to dark, and so everyone must labor who is not rich enough to hire it done for him. ”

“ If he dies it will not be for you. No, I will go and throw it in the river first.”
Then the cousin’s son spoke up in defense and for the sake of peace and he said, his face wrinkling in such a distressful hour and cause, “No, aunt, do not blame him. He offered more than twice your store. He offered a hundred pieces for his brother, and to high and low in that gaol, as high as he could get he offered bribes. To this one and to that he showed silver, but they would not even let him see your little son.”
“Then he did not offer enough,” the mother shouted. ”

“ Indians and other natives along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of tropical America, and not a few white men in "dress" off the coasts of Australia. Your pearls have seen the dusky man-fish come silently and swiftly from the world of air to wrench the gaping shells that held them, from their anchorage. It may be your pearl lay twenty fathoms deep in the clear water of some lonely atoll in the great Pacific, among branching coral, and found its way from water's solitudes to the light of the Sun and admiring eyes by the hand of a bright-eyed Polynesian. ”

“ On the coasts of China, Japan, Korea, some of the South Sea Islands, the English Channel islands, the Canary islands, about St. Malo on the coast of France, at Queen Charlotte's island and along the coast of California from north of San Francisco to the border of Lower California, at the Cape of Good Hope, India, Australia and New Zealand, a shell-fish is taken which has considerable commercial value and yields pearls to a limited extent. ”

“ I myself will show them where there is shell in seven fathoms of water—not so much as where we dive, but a good place to begin. Let them beware of the clefts and crevices where an eel might lurk, and avoid the dark caverns in the coral, for it is in such places that the tonu lies in wait. There seems little to fear in Iriatai, but one is never sure. As for pearls, watch always for the great lone oysters crusted with coral and misshapen with old age—parau tahito, we call them, and every diver knows that they contain the finest pearls. ”

“ In the still, clear waters of far-away lagoons, treasures of pearls, released by the death of their creators, have rolled to a resting-place on coral reefs, to lie there until the sea, atom by atom, devoured them. Could all the pearls hoarded by every nation on earth be gathered together, the mighty sum would be small compared with the number of those which lie buried beneath the ocean.
But, one by one, slant-eyed Celestials, Maoris, Malays, Papuans, Polynesians and others, discovering, learned to prize and hoard the pearl. ”

“ Situated in about five to ten fathoms close to the top of the western slope of the shallows, and running north and south about twenty miles from land, it is exposed to the southwest monsoon which runs up toward the Bay of Bengal for about six months of the year. The natives call this the mother-paar, believing that the young oysters are carried from it to the other paars, which are thus stocked at its expense. ”

“ The natives dispose of their pearls, as they are able, to traders, often for a very small price. It is so to-day at many points in the Sulu archipelago from Mindanao to the Tawi Tawi islands. The smaller established fisheries of the seas east of China assort roughly and sell in bulk to buyers from neighboring trading centers. ”

“ On the whole coast of this province, for two hundred leagues, there are many vast beds of oysters which breed pearls, as has been found in divers places. But, which is very remarkable, far from the sea, in fresh water rivers and lakes, there is a sort of shell-fish between a mussel and a , wherein are found abundance of pearls, and many of an unusual magnitude. The Indians, when they take the oysters, broil them over the fire till they are fit to eat, keeping the large pearls they find in them, which by the heat are tarnished and lose their native lustre ”

“ In the Mississippi Valley, the ancient population known as the mound-builders, by some regarded as a distinct and earlier race, and by others as of true Indian stock, although much more advanced in arts and culture, have left in their mounds most remarkable quantities of pearls. But here again, the same feature appears, that these treasures are not found wherever there are mounds, but only in certain regions. Of these, by far the most celebrated is that of the Scioto and Miami valleys, in Ohio. ”

“ The only people who, through their employments, knew the interior well were the Indians and half-breed hunters. It was the statements of these, therefore, and of the few prosperous farmers and stockmen scattered here and there, which afforded us our only reliable knowledge.
The most extensive prairies adjacent to the Upper Peace River are those to the north already described. The nearest on the south side are the prairies of Spirit River, a small stream which divides several townships of first-class black, loamy soil, well wooded in parts, but with considerable prairie. ”

“ In the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Gulf of California, and the islands of the Pacific, where pearl-diving is a profession and a regular source of livelihood, the number of employees is fairly constant. But in the rivers and ponds of America, as well as of Europe and of Asia, where neither experience nor costly equipment is required for the industry, and pearls to the value of very many thousands of dollars are obtained by men, women, and even children, on pleasure bent, as well as in the widely fluctuating professional fisheries, the problem is far more difficult. ”

“ These men bear very hard on the fishermen, furnishing the supplies and buying the pearls almost at their own prices; and the poor divers who explore the depths and secure the pearls derive from their exertions little more than the crudest necessaries of life, and are usually in debt to the traders.
The actual fishing operations are carried on mainly by the maritime tribes of Hasa and Oman, including those on the Pirate Coast. The inhabitants of the Bahrein Islands and the adjacent shores have been devoted to pearling from time immemorial ”

“ Aside from those produced in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, the pearl fisheries of Africa are of small extent. Some reefs exist on the lower coast of the German East African territory and also in Portuguese East Africa, but they have not been thoroughly exploited.
In most of the inshore waters of Australasia pearls may be secured; the fisheries are most extensive on the northern coast of Australia, in the Sulu Archipelago, and about the Dutch East Indies. Tuamotu Archipelago, Gambier, Fiji, and Penrhyn are prominent in the South Pacific Ocean. ”

“ In the far end of the lagoon, where no one goes to-day, I have found where the strange shells with edges like gold lie on the coral in thousands, not more than fifteen fathoms deep. Many times I have gone alone in my canoe to dive for them, and I have found fine pearls, great and small. These are true words. The white man called Seroni, who brings people to plant coconuts on Iriatai, is a good man and my friend, but I have said nothing of the pearls to him. ”

“ Pearl-fishing is actively prosecuted along the western coast of Central America, especially in the Gulf of California, and to a less extent around the Pearl Islands in the Bay of Panama. The fishing-grounds are in water about 40 ft. deep, and the season lasts for four months. An ordinary fishing-party expects to obtain about three tons of shells per day, and it is estimated that one shell in a thousand contains a pearl. ”

“ The average daily catch of each man is probably two or three oysters, but a fisherman has been known to bring up fifty in one day. On some vessels, those who fall behind in the catch are punished by extra duty aboard ship.
The pearling industry has had a marked effect on the industrial and social condition of the natives of the Australian coast and the adjacent islands. Many of these natives now have boats of their own, and others seek employment on other vessels. Law and order and decent respect for property have arisen, with schools and churches. ”

“ It is evident from the quantities discovered in some of the mounds that a very great number of pearls, many of large size, must have been owned by these aborigines, and they were evidently quite expert in the art of drilling them. Pearls must have been freely used for ornamental purposes, and it is clear that many rivers in this region must have produced them in great numbers, when we consider that in all probability the mussels were taken only as they were required for food or for bait in fishing, and had probably reached their full growth. ”

“ But numerous inlets open up into the land, and four considerable creeks, the Keri-keri, Waitangi, Kawa-kawa, and Waitari fall into the bay, forming large estuaries at their junction with it. The promontories, headlands, and indentations of the shores, together with the hundred islands and islets that thickly stud the waters, diversify the scenery very much, and cause you to think, as you sail or row between them, that you are gliding from river into river and from channel into channel, with broad lake-like reaches interspersed. ”

“ After these come the ancient fisheries of India, the most prolific in the world. The oysters here are smaller than those of the Arabian Sea and the shells are of no value, but they mature rapidly and yield great quantities of pearls. Myriads of them cover the shoals and banks between the coast of India, at the South-eastern point, and Ceylon, and as the beds are under government supervision, they cannot be destroyed by the reckless fishing of immature oysters. ”

“ In the Gulf of Siam on the Asiatic coast, pearls are obtained from a small oyster with a thin shell, presumably a variety of the Lingah oyster. The beds have not yet been thoroughly exploited, as the Siamese do not especially value pearls, attributing some superstitious sentiments of ill luck to them. However, from time to time Chinese traders have bought them from the Malay divers and sold them at great profit in the Singapore market. The known beds occur chiefly in the northern part of the gulf, on the west coast, and extend in a narrow belt for a distance of about one hundred miles. ”

“ Here, at a certain spot, beds have existed for thousands of years, and are annually dredged for, or we should rather say, dived for, by organized companies. Pearl oysters are also found in large numbers in the Gulf of Manaar, between this island and the continent of India. The season chosen for the pearl fishery, which gives employment to large numbers of the natives, is naturally when the sea is most calm, that is, between the termination of the northeast and the commencement of the southwest monsoons. ”