One goes out regularly in the head pilot’s boat. The other performs certain ceremonies on shore. He is stripped naked, and shut up in a room, where no person sees him from the period of the sailing of the boats until their return. He has before him a brass basin full of water, containing one male and one female fish made of silver. If any accident should happen from a shark at sea, it is believed that one of these fishes is seen to bite the other. The divers likewise believe that, if the conjurer should be dissatisfied, he has the power of making the sharks attack them, on which account he is sure of receiving liberal presents from all quarters.[145] Amusing stories are told of the shrewdness displayed by these fellows in inventing explanations to redeem their credit when a fisherman became a victim of the sharks. These accounts are by men who evidently bore no good-will toward the shark-charmers, and it would be of interest to hear from the other side; but we have been unable to find any one who has appeared in print in their defense. The British government, in its policy of noninterference with the superstitions or semi-religious customs of the natives, tolerated these seeming impostors, owing, probably, in a measure, to the fact that the superstitious belief in their necessity was favorable to the preservation of the resources, since it restricted poaching on the reefs. However, the government endeavored to prevent an extravagant misuse of the influence, and restricted the compensation of the shark-charmers to one oyster per day from each diver. Later, they were remunerated by the government, and were not allowed, under any pretense whatever, to demand, exact, or receive oysters or any other compensation from the boatmen, divers, or any other persons. And, finally, in 1885, the shark-charmers were done away with entirely, after having exacted their toll for upward of six centuries at least. The dangers to which the Ceylon divers are exposed have been greatly exaggerated, and especially the risks from sharks. Poets tell how “the Ceylon pearler went all naked to the hungry shark,” and the struggle of the diver has been a favorite theme with sensational writers. As a matter of fact, the trouble from this source is very slight, and the occupation is less dangerous than that of most of the deep-water fisheries, not to be compared, for instance, with that of the winter haddock-fishery off the New England coast. Even in 1905, when 4991 divers and an equal number of assistants were employed in pearling, not a single fatal accident was reported, and although much rough weather prevailed, not a fishing boat was lost. In the important fishery of 1904, with 3049 divers, only one fatal accident occurred, this was an elderly Moorman, whose death at the bottom was apparently due either to apoplexy or to exhaustion from remaining under water too long.