cocoanut butter that he shone like a stove-polish advertisement.
The boat grounding on the shelving bottom a hundred feet from shore,
this precious Indian, who was to pass a good share of the ensuing ten
weeks in the water, even at the bottom of the sea, deliberately seated
himself astride the shoulders of his manduck, and was borne to dry land
with the care of one whose religion might forbid contact with water. He
carried beneath one arm throughout the trip from the small boat a
gingham umbrella, and under the other an Indian railway guide.

There are neither wharves nor landing-stages at Marichchikkaddi. Even
His Excellency the Governor must lay aside his dignity in going from his
boat to the shore. The horde of people working about the pearling fleet,
amphibious by nature, have little need for those accommodations and
necessities which the commercial world call "landing facilities."

The world over, gambling and speculation are joined in many ways to
superstition; and the Eastern diver is superstitious to the hour of his
death. At Marichchikkaddi he devotedly resorts to the mystic ceremony of
the shark-charmer, whose exorcism for generations has been an
indispensable preliminary to the opening of a fishery. The
shark-charmer's power is believed to be hereditary. If one of them can
be enlisted on a diver's boat, success is assured to all connected with
the craft. The common form of fortune-tempting nowadays is for a diver
to break a cocoanut on his sinking-weight just before embarking. If it
be a clean and perfect break, success is assured; if irregular and
jagged, only ordinary luck may be anticipated; and if the shell be
broken in without separating into halves, it spells disaster, and the
alarmed fisher probably refuses to go with the boat.

Last year's fleet was the largest ever participating in a Ceylon
fishery, three hundred and twenty boats being enrolled. The largest
boats came from Tuticorin, and carried thirty-four divers each. The
smallest boat had a complement of seven divers. Each diver was
faithfully attended by a manduck, who ran his tackle and watched over
his interests with jealous care both in and out of the water. Besides
the manducks, every boat had numerous sailors, food- and water-servers,
and a riffraff of hangers-on. It was estimated that divers and manducks
aggregated nine thousand souls. A system of apportionment gives every
man in a boat an interest in the take, the divers generally retain