Great care is taken in dressing the diver. Everything must fit perfectly, every screw must be properly wound in, every strap and buckle made fast, or the poor diver may be in great danger. His breastplate of copper is fastened on with metal clasps or bolts. A fixture at his back steadies the weights both back and front, weighing forty pounds each. These weights, it must be, are in some way supported by the ropes with which they let him down.
Such boots! Stout leather, with soles of lead, securely strapped on, and weighing at least twenty pounds each. A band fitted about his waist is kept in place by strong braces.
Then his helmet! Tinned copper, and full of screws, pipes, and hooks. On the face part were three openings as in a lantern, in which were screwed plate-glasses, or bull's-eyes. These, of course, were to see through, and stood out like little telescopes, or half-tumblers, with brass frames around them called "guards" which protect the glass, that is thick and strong.
There were also queer valves, or tubes, in the helmet for letting out bad air, yet so contrived that no water could get in. A hook was on either side, through which ropes must pass.
The diver can breathe while under water by means of an air-pipe, and by pulling on a life-line, can make his wants known to those above.
When the diver is all ready to descend, a man at the pump begins supplying him with air, and down he goes, first on an iron ladder at the vessel's side, then on long ladders of rope, with heavy weights at the ends.
I peeped from midst great weed-pads, and saw the diver as he reached the bottom of the sea. Do you wonder I trembled, yet was amused at what I saw? In his hands this time—for I saw him more than once after this—was a great hook and a light bag with a wide-open mouth. And what do you think? He had come to get sponges from the blue sea. Of course not at very great depth.
He knew his work. With the long hook, sponge after sponge was torn from its clung-to home on the slippery rocks, and quickly popped into the bag. He always moved backwards. If anything stopped him, rock, wreck, or floating weeds, he could turn slowly and carefully around, and see what it was. But should he meet an object suddenly at the fore, it might break even his shielded glass. Then he must immediately give the signal to be raised aloft.
Divers must begin by going down only a little way under the water, as it takes great skill and long practice to be able to go safely into deep water. A diver has about him a coil of line connected with the ladder, which he unwinds as he moves away; but by winding it about him again, he can find his way back to the ladder.
If two divers go down at the same time, I notice they take great care not to let their air-lines or life-lines cross each other's, and so get entangled. It might be a very serious affair to get them mixed.