eave in sight and become troublesome, and was more than willing
to make sure of such spoil as we had already accumulated. Therefore, on
a certain morning, instead of getting the schooner under way and
proceeding to the oyster bank, as usual, the longboat was hauled
alongside, and, attired in our very oldest clothes, armed with a ship's
bucket each, and provided with a plentiful supply of disinfectant cloths
to fasten over our mouths and nostrils upon reaching the field of
action, all hands of us, except the cook and the cabin boy, got into her
and pulled away for the shore.

The air was literally darkened by the immense numbers of birds that had
returned to the island, attracted by the odour, after having been driven
off, and we soon saw that a few of the bolder of them had summoned up
courage to settle among our oysters, despite the scarecrow which we had
set up; but they took to flight immediately upon our approach, and
hovered over us all day, uttering their melancholy cries with such
persistency, and creating such a volume of sound, that we could scarcely
hear our own voices.

However, we were there not to talk but to work. Upon stepping ashore
the first thing we did, after securing the boat, was to fill our buckets
with clean salt water, in which to wash and deposit any pearls that we
might find; next we swathed our mouths and nostrils with the
disinfecting cloths; and then, told off by the skipper, each of us took
a row of the decaying fish and proceeded to search carefully the putrid
matter for what many people regard as the most lovely gems in the world.

There is no need for me to dilate upon the disagreeable, not to say
disgusting nature of the task upon which we now found ourselves engaged;
it may safely be left to the imagination of the reader, and I will
content myself with merely placing upon record the fact that it was
infinitely worse than even Cunningham or I had anticipated--and we
believed that we had gauged the objectionable character of the work
pretty accurately. But, so far at least as I was concerned, I soon
forgot the sickeningly offensive nature of my work in the interest
attaching to it, for I had not been five minutes engaged upon it when I
came upon a most superb pearl, perfectly globular in shape, with the
exquisite sheeny lustre peculiar to gems of what are termed the first
water, and, as nearly as might be, an inch in diameter. Such a find as
this was more than enough to make me for