Nohea thrust his knife between the blades of a bivalve and pried open his resisting jaws. True pearls lie in the tissues of the oyster, generally in the rear of the body and sealed in a pocket. Nohea laid down the parted shell and seized the animal, and dissected his boneless substance in a gesture of eager inquiry. I watched his actions with as sharp response, and sighed as each oyster in turn was thrown into the bucket, in which was sea-water. When all had been submitted to the test and no pearl had flashed upon our hopeful eyes we examined the shells, trusting that though the true pearls had escaped us we might find blisters, those which, having a point of contact with the shell, are thus not perfect in shape and skin, but have a flaw. These often have large value, if they can be skinned to advantage; and the diver put his smaller hopes upon them.
With pearls, orient or blister, eliminated, the primary and actually more important basis of the industry appealed to Nohea. He estimated the weight and value of the shells, which would be transported to London for manufacture in the French Department of the Oise into the black pearl buttons that ornament women’s dresses. These Paumotuan shells were celebrated for their black borders, nacre á bord noir, more valuable than the gold-lipped product of the Philippines, but a third cheaper than the silver-lipped shells of Australia. With at least the comfort of a heavy catch of this less remunerative though hardly less beautiful creation of the oyster, Nohea pointed out to me that the formation of the mother-of-pearl or nacre on the shells was from left to right, as if the oyster were right minded.
“When the whorls of a shell are from right to left,” he said, “that shell is valuable as a curiosity. The people of Asia, the Chinese, pay well for it, and a Chinese shell-buyer now here told me that in Initia [India] they weighed it with gold in old times. In China they keep such shells in the temples to hold the sacred oil, and the priests administer magic medicine in them.”
Nohea completed the round of the day’s undertaking by macerating the oysters and throwing them into the lagoon that their spawn might be released for another generation. He cut off and threaded the adhesive muscle of the oyster, the tatari ioro, to eat when dried. It was something like the scallop or abalone abductor muscle sold in our markets. The shells would be put into the sheds or warehouses to dry and to be beaten and rubbed so as to reduce the bulk of their backs, which have no value but weigh heavily.
After we had supped, Nohea and the older divers gathered at Mapuhi’s for a discussion of the day’s luck, and I went along to the coterie of traders by Lying Bill’s firm’s store. A cocoanut-husk fire was burning, and about it sat Bill, McHenry, Llewellyn, Nimau, Mandel, Kopcke, and others. Mandel was the most notable pearl-buyer and expert here, with an office in Paris and a warehouse in Papeete. He was huge and with gross features, and was rated as the richest man in these South Seas. His own schooner had dropped anchor off Takaroa a few days before with Mrs. Mandel in command. He might make the bargain for pearls, but she would do the paying and squeeze the most out of the price to the native. She ruled with no soft hand, and in her long life had solved many difficult problems in money-grubbing in this archipelago. Her husband was the head of the Mandel tribe, but sons and daughter all knew the dancing boards of the schooner and the intricacies of the pearl-market. Usually Mandel stayed in Tahiti or visited Paris, but the rahui in Takaroa was too promising a prize for any of them to remain away, and all of the family were diligent in intrigue and negotiation. Mandel had handled the finest pearls of the Paumotus for many years. I had seen Mrs. Mandel come ashore, in a sheeny yellow Mother-Hubbard or Tahitian ahu vahine and a cork helmet; but she made her home on her schooner, to which she invited those from whom her good man had purchased shell or pearls.
Pearls were, of course, the subject of the talk about the fire. Toae, a Hikueru man, had found one, and Mandel had it already. He showed it to me, a pea-shaped, dusky object, with no striking beauty.
“I may be mistaken,” said Mandel, “but I believe this outside layer is poorer than one inside. In Paris my employees will peel it and see. It is taking a chance, but we have a second sight about it. You know a pearl is like an onion, with successive skins, and we take off a number sometimes. It reduces the size but may increase the luster. Also we are using the ultra-violet ray to improve color. I saw a pearl that cost a hundred thousand francs sold for three hundred thousand after the ray was used on it. You know a pearl is produced only by a sick oyster. It is a pathological product like gall-stones, and it is mostly caused by a tapeworm getting into the oyster’s shell, though a grain of sand is often the nucleus. The oyster feels the grating or irritating thing and secretes nacre to cover it. The tapeworm is embalmed in this mother-of-pearl, and the sand smoothed with it. The material, the nacre, is the same as the interior of the shell, and the oyster seems not to stop covering the intruder when the itching has stopped but keeps on out of habit. And so forms small and big pearls. Now a blister is generally over a bug or snail, though sometimes it is a stop-gap to keep out a borer who is drilling through the shell from the outside. The blisters are usually hollow, whereas a pearl has a yellow center with the carbonate of lime in concentric prisms. An orient or true pearl is formed in the muscles of the oyster and does not touch the shell; but the blister, which generally is part of the shell, may have been started in the oyster’s sac or folds, and have dropped out or been released to hold between the oyster and the shell. With these we cut away the outside down to the original pearl. A blister itself is only good for a brooch or an ornament, but I have gotten five or ten thousand francs for the best.”
Captain Nimau, who was only less clever than Mandel in the lore of pearls, said that, as the lagoons were often three hundred feet or deeper in places, it was probable that larger pearls than ever yet brought up were in these untouched caches.
“The Paumotuan has descended 180 feet,” said Nimau. “I have plumbed his dive. A diver with a suit cannot go any deeper, and so we never have explored the possible beds ’way down. The whole face of the outer reef may be a vast oyster-bed, but the surf prevents us from investigating. I have seen in December and March of many years millions of baby oysters floating into the lagoons with the rising tide, to remain there. They never go out again but prefer the quiet life where they can grow up strong and big. The singular thing about these pearl-oysters is that they can move about. When you try to break them loose from the ledge they prove to be very firmly attached by their byssus, but they travel from one shelf to another when they need a change of food. It is not sand they are most afraid of. They can spit their nacre on it if it gets in their shells; but it is the little red crab that bothers them most. You know how often you find the crab living happily in the pearl-shell because when the oyster feeds he gets his share, and he is too active for the oyster to kill as it does the worm, by spitting its nacre on him and entombing him. Some day divers in improved suits will search for the thousands of pearls that have fallen upon the bottom from dead oysters, and maybe make millions. Mais, après tout, pearls may soon have little value, for they say that the Japanese and other people are growing them like mushrooms, and, though they have not yet perfected the orient or true pearl, they may some day. One man, some kind of foreigner, who used to be around here, discovered the secret, but it’s lost now.”