Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/344

294 over, and carries tliem back. A great saving of time is thus effected, and the risk of shipwreck of course much diminished. On the coast of Crete the Calymniotes have to pay 600 piasters each for permission to fish in the Cretan waters. On the Syrian coast this permission is granted on payment of from 100 to 140 piasters each caique.

The finest and best-formed sponges in the Archipelago are found round the island of Astypalæa, near Calymnos. The sponges of the northern part of the Archipelago are fine, but not well-formed; above the Dardanelles, sponges are found in small quantities but of bad quality. The Cretan sponges are much esteemed for their fineness; those of Syria, known in the trade as Paracham, for their forms. The sponges of Barbary are diflicult to cleanse, and are therefore not durable. Professor Forbes, in his account of the Archipelago sponges,132 quotes Aristotle as stating that the best kinds grow on the coasts which become suddenly deep, and that the superior fineness of texture in these deep-sea kinds may be attributed to the greater uniformity of temperature of the water in such places. The Calymniotes do not agree to this. They think that sponges grow best where the bottom is level, but do not believe that they are affected by the change of temperature in shallow water. Where, however, they are subject to the action of the waves, this movement must affect their shape and growth. The fine sponge without sand is worth at present from 100 to 260 piasters the oke (a weight equal to two pounds and three-quarters avoirdupois);