Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/342

292 caiques in the autumn, the merchants who made the advances to the divers reimburse themselves by purchasing the produce of the season at a price very much below the real value of each cargo. The sponge-merchant then sends his sponges direct to Smyrna, Syra, or Trieste, where they are repurchased by the great traders who supply the European market; and thus, when the sponge arrives in England, the price, after passing through so many hands, is very much raised. But the cause of the dearness of sponges is the great risk of life and capital incurred in the first instance. The diver descends, holding a flat stone in both hands, to assist him in sinking, on which stone a cord is fastened. When he gets to the bottom, he puts this flat stone under his arm, and walks about in search of sponges, putting them in a net hung round his neck, as fast as he uproots them; he then pulls the cord as a signal, and is drawn up again. It is said that the best divers can descend to a depth of thirty fathoms, and that they can remain under water for as long a period as three minutes.131 From inquiries which I have made, it does not appear that they are often cut off by sharks, though these monsters are not unfrequent in the southern part of the Archipelago. It is possible that the rapid descent of the diver may scare away this fish, who generally seizes his prey on the surface. A Calymniote told me that the most terrible sensation he had ever experienced was finding himself close to an immense fish at the bottom of the sea. Under the root of the sponge is a parasitical substance of a caustic nature. This