Although the season is short, it is strenuous. Arising shortly after midnight, the thousands of fishermen breakfast, perform their devotions and prepare to get under way so as to reach the reefs about sunrise. There each boat takes its position on the ground allotted for the day’s work, and which has been marked in advance by buoys topped with flags; and shortly afterward, on a signal from the guard vessel, the diving commences. This is carried on in the same manner as already described for the Persian Gulf, except that the Indian divers do not use nose-clips, only compressing the nostrils with the fingers during the descent. Rarely do they descend to a greater depth than ten fathoms. The divers work in pairs, each pair using a single diving stone in common, and descending alternately, precisely as in the Persian Gulf. It is remarkable what few changes have occurred in the methods of the fishery in the last six centuries; the description[139] of Marco Polo, who visited the region about 1294, and of writers somewhat more recent, indicating that, in the main features, it was then conducted in the same manner as at the present time. An exception to the usual mode of diving is practised by the Malayalam fishermen, who, in some seasons—as in 1903, for instance—attend in large numbers from Travancore and northward on the Malabar coast. These men are rather low in skill and physical endurance.[140] They dive head foremost from a spring-board, and even with this assistance,—or possibly we should say, handicapped by this method,—they find the average depth of eight fathoms too great for them to work in with much comfort, rarely remaining under water longer than forty-five seconds. The number of oysters secured on each visit to the bottom ranges from nothing to seventy-five or more, averaging between fifteen and fifty. This depends not only on the ability of the fishermen, but also on the abundance of oysters and the ease with which they may be collected. Sometimes they are held together in loose bunches of five to ten in each, and a diver can easily gather one hundred in the short length of time he remains submerged. In other localities they may be somewhat firmly attached individually to the bottom, so that some force is necessary to release them, thus reducing the possible quantity. Ordinarily one dive clears a space of several square yards. [Illustration: Unloading oysters from the vessels into the kottus, at Marichchikadde, Ceylon ] [Illustration: The pearling fleet on the shore at Marichchikadde, Ceylon ] [Illustration: Hindu workmen preparing to drill pearls, Marichchikadde, Ceylon ]