Reading Hegel

I had read fragments of Hegel’s philosophy, the grotesque craggy melody of which did not appeal to me. Once more I wanted to dive into the sea, but with the definite intention of establishing that the nature of the mind is just as necessary, concrete and firmly based as the nature of the body. My aim was no longer to practise tricks of swordsmanship, but to bring genuine pearls into the light of day.

Karl Marx, from a letter to his father, 10 November 1837 

Pearl fisheries of the South Sea islands

The divers are of many nationalities, principally Japanese and Malays, and the former are said to be the most efficient. Previous to 1890, they were mostly whites, and were paid at the rate of £40 per ton of shells; but increased competition and the influx of cheaper labor caused a considerable decrease in the rate of compensation, driving most of the white men out of the employment. At present the Japanese almost monopolize the business. Of the 367 divers licensed at Thursday Island in 1905, 291 were Japanese, 32 were Filipinos, 21 were from Rotuma Island, 16 were Malays, and 7 were of other nationalities; this shows how completely the white man has been driven out of this skilled, branch of labor.

The oysters are so scattered that considerable walking is necessary to find them. They usually lie with the shells partly open, and in grasping them the fisherman must be careful not to insert a finger within the open shell, or a very bad pinch will result. The progress of the vessel must be adapted to that of the diver, and when a good clump of oysters is found it may even be desirable to anchor. If the current and wind are just right, the vessel may repeatedly drift over a bed, the diver ascending and remaining on board while the vessel is retracing its course to the windward side of the reef. On new grounds, the nature of the bottom is determined by casting the lead properly tipped with soap or tallow, and the prospects for oysters thus determined without descending.

During good weather and in eight or ten fathoms of water, a diver can work almost continually, and need not return to the surface for two hours or more; but as the depth increases, the length of time he may remain at the bottom in safety decreases almost in geometric ratio, and he comes to the surface frequently for a “blow” with helmet removed. Evidence secured by a departmental commission of the Queensland government in 1897, showed that in good weather at a depth of eight or ten fathoms, a diver works from sunrise to sunset, coming to the surface only a few times. In a depth of over fifteen fathoms the attendant usually has instructions not to let him remain longer than fifteen minutes at a time; yet a diver’s eagerness in working where good shell is plentiful sometimes impels him to order the attendant to disregard this rule. The very great pressure of the water amounting to thirty-nine pounds or more to the square inch is liable to cause paralysis, and death occasionally results. In working at a depth of twenty to twenty-five fathoms, a diver is rarely under water longer than half an hour altogether during the day. The greatest depth from which shell is brought appears from the same evidence to be “30 fathoms and a little over”; but at that depth where the pressure is seventy-eight pounds to the square inch the fisherman remains down only a few minutes at a stretch, and should be exceedingly careful. The work is injurious, and even under the best conditions the diver not infrequently becomes semi-paralyzed and disqualified in a few years. Notwithstanding that the work is performed by men in vigorous health, nearly every year there are from ten to twenty-five deaths in the Queensland fleet alone; three fourths of these are due to paralysis, and most of the remaining result from suffocation, owing largely to inexperience in use of gear. From five to ten years is the usual length of a man’s diving career, although in the fleet may be found men who have been diving for twenty-five years or more.

George Frederick Kunz and Charles Hugh Stevenson, The Book of the Pearl: The History, Art, Science and Industry of the Queen of Gems (1908), chapter nine, ‘Pearl fisheries of the South Sea Islands’

Boowa and his undersea maze

Doesn’t Diving For Pearls with Boowa look fun ? He looks cool diving for pearls wearing his snorkel. Boowa wants to make a lovely pearl necklace for Kwala. Will he find enough jewels or will Kwala have to settle for a bracelet ? Exotic fish, sea creatures, and oysters make it exciting to go diving for pearls!

Online game for children from Boowa and Kwala (a French children’s television series), part of the www.uptoten.com site.

The Light of Asia

Lo! I lived
In era of Resolve, desiring good,
Searching for wisdom, but mine eyes were sealed.
Count the grey seeds on yonder castor-clump -
So many rains it is since I was Ram,
A merchant of the coast which looketh south
To Lanka and the hiding-place of pearls.
Also in that far time Yasodhara
Dwelt with me in our village by the sea,
Tender as now, and Lukshmi was her name.
And I remember how I journeyed thence
Seeking our gain, for poor the household was
And lowly. Not the less with wistful tears
She prayed me that I should not part, nor tempt
Perils by land and water. ‘How could love
Leave what it loved?’ she wailed; yet, venturing, I
Passed to the Straits, and after storm and toil
And deadly strife with creatures of the deep,
And woes beneath the midnight and the noon,
Searching the wave I won therefrom a pearl
Moonlike and glorious, such as kings might buy
Emptying their treasury.

Sir Edwin Arnold, The Light of Asia (1879), extract.

The Light of Asia is an epic poem on the life and teaching of the Buddha. It was highly popular in the late Victorian period.

Comus

But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway
Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream,
Took in by lot, ’twixt high and nether Jove,
Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles
That, like to rich and various gems, inlay
The unadorned bosom of the deep;
Which he, to grace his tributary gods,
By course commits to several government,
And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns
And wield their little tridents.

John Milton, Comus (1634), extract from opening lines

Jerusalem Delivered

The islanders came then their prince before
Whose lands Arabia’s gulf enclosed about,
Wherein they fish and gather oysters store,
Whose shells great pearls rich and round pour out;
The Red Sea sent with them from his left shore,
Of negroes grim a black and ugly rout;
These Agricalt and those Osmida brought,
A man that set law, faith and truth at naught.

Torquato Tasso, La Gerusalemme liberata [Jerusalem Delivered] (1580), stanza XXIII.

La Gerusalemme liberata is an epic poem centered around the First Crusade and the siege of Jerusalem.

Diving for Pearls

Barbara: Anyway it’s all in the past. Put it all behind me. Would never have worked. Certainly not for me. There’s a bloody great world out there. I was just thinking about these ferry trips we used to get taken on to Manly. When we were little. I like boats. And how at the end of the wharf there used to be these boys, teenage boys, diving off the high part for coins. Silver coins. Sixpences and shillings. And how sometimes someone’d trick them. You know throw in a penny. And one of them’d go in. Just as if it was a shilling. [To Den] Not me. I won’t. Diving for dirty old pennies.

Den: We’ve both done a bit of that.

[Pause]

Barbara: When you think how we could have been … diving for anything … pearls …

Katherine Thomson, Diving for Pearls (1992).

Katherine Thomson’s Australian play is about ‘two ordinary people’ (Barbara and Den) ‘discarded by the lean, mean 90s world’. The lines come from the end of the play. It was first performed in 1991.