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Show BOY DIVERS OF POLYNESIA. Without the Use of Suits, These Div-' Div-' ers Reach Enormous Depths. (Philadelphia Ledger.) . Away out in the South Pacific ocean, where white men rarely are seen, there lies a little coral atoll known as Hi-kueru Hi-kueru Atoll. It is different from most coral atolls of which you read in your geography, for it . is a solid ring of coral, and the lagoon inside of it can be entered only by dragging boats over the beach. This lagoon Is one of the valuable pearl shell lagoons, and is sought every year by the dwellers on Tahiti and other oth-er islands of the South seas to fish for nearl. The French government, which owns the atoll, has forbidden the use of diving div-ing suits, because it is feared that this method would prove too destructive to the pearl shells, so the diving is done in the ancient South sea way, by men and boys and women, who go down with no artificial help. When the time comes for the pearl fishing they set out from their islands, some of -them 400 miles away from the atoll. Most of the natives bring their families and household effects with them. Many even bring their houses. This is not so difficult an undertaking as it may appear at first sight, for the houses are made from light cocoanut palms and pandanus leaves. They are built up in sections, so they are easy to take apart and transport. Most of the diving is done In water from sixty to seventy feet deep. The sea is so clear in the atoll that the diver can study the bottom perfectly with a water glass and locate the best clumps of shell before he dives. When he is ready ' to go down he slips into the water over the side of the 1 boat, and, holding to the gunwale with ; one hand, he looks downward through , the water glass. The moment he sights a good lot of shells he begins to breathe deeply, sucking the air in until his chest is inflated as far as it can be, and then exhaling it slowly through the mouth, so that it makes a whistling whis-tling sound. Having thus cleaned out his lungs, he takes a long breath, filling his chest with perfectly pure air, and j then he lets go of the gunwale instant- ' ly and sinks below the surface, feet foremost. After he has thus sunk about ten i feet he turns quickly and swims toward the bottom, head first, cleaving the water as gracefully and swiftly as a fish would. On touching bottom he hauls himself along by seizing clumps of coral until he reaches the shells. Then he breaks them off the reef with his right hand, which is protected by white cotton cloth. " Quickly he puts the shells into a little net of cocoanut fibre, which he carries over his shoulders. shoul-ders. Then he stands erect, and immediately im-mediately he shoots toward the surface sur-face as if he were pulled by a rope. So swiftly does he ascend that he frequently fre-quently seems to leap out of the water when he reaches the surface. Of course, the boys and girls of these South Sea islands can swim and dive almost as well as if they were water dwellers. One of them made an exhibition ex-hibition dive for the officers of the United States fish commission steamship steam-ship Albatross last year. He remained under water two minutes and forty seconds, and reached bottom at a depth of 102 feet under the boat's keel. The water was so transparent that the beholders could see him clearly. They : declare that after he had touched bot- i torn at this enormous depth he calmly : picked over the pieces of coral and ' shell at the bottom to select one to bring up, exactly as a man might cull flowers when working at his ease in a ' garden. This young diver was. ready i to go down again only a few minutes j after he came up. The Albatross men were told that one I diver had made a record by reaching the bottom in a place where soundings j showed the ocean to be 138 feet deep, j |
