I Go A – Pearling

Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the gem industry.

(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:

Earlier in the day he had been talking to Yakoob, the Malay cook. Now, coming up close behind him, Yakoob said, loudly enough for all to hear: ‘Angkau takot-kah? (Are you afraid?)’
Without raising his eyes Ohtami said to the boss: ‘Let the master give orders to head the vessel straight for the Tuli Bataba Bank.’
‘And get the bottom ripped out of the Idmu? Are you crazy?’
‘The hand of Toyo pointed there,’ muttered Ohtami.
‘And last night he spoke to me as I slept. The shell is there in plenty.’
The master was tough and superstitious. He cursed Ohtami up and down. Then he upped anchor, hoisted sail and made for the narrow channel by the banks. Once through, taking soundings all the way, the master let the sails drop and put out the stern anchor.
‘If there is shell here, you scoundrel,’ he swore, ‘you shall have a third of all comes up this trip. But if you find no shell, then you shall work for me for the rest of the voyage for nothing.’ For that was the bargain the crafty skipper had made before venturing on the diver’s advice.

Twenty minutes after he had gone down Ohtami came up with a bag full of shell. It was well matured, sound shell, silver lipped, wonderfully free from worm-holes. For three days they worked below (it was an easy ground, no more than five fathoms deep). It was a wonderful spot. The oysters grew as close together as bundles of bills in a banker’s strongroom. The lugger cleaned up for a month. Ohtami’s share of the haul was more than seven thousand dollars, an enormous fortune for him.

Now he grew ambitious. He would have a lugger of his own. Two Moro shipwrights built it for him on the Tulai beach, with the help of half a score of Samals and within sight of Jolo marketplace. By that time I had appeared on the scene and saw her launched. I saw, too, the whole run of Ohtami’s luck. It lasted six years.

It is a strange thing that whereas the Chinese coolie who becomes rich rarely is overbearing, the newly prosperous Japanese often grows insolent. Ohtami had no use for white men in the days of his prosperity. On principle he would never go to see a white pearl buyer. The buyer had to come to him as a petitioner for goods on which the owner would fix no price. ‘How much you give this?’ he would say, and whatever price was offered he would refuse ti with a sneer.

His distrust of the white man became a mania. It was impossible to deal with him. Finally one trader began to go into his office, look over Ohtami’s collection, select the best piece and put a tip-top price on it—a price he knew would not be accepted, because Ohtami would certainly expect it to be bettered elsewhere. His conviction that all the white dealers were rogues was confirmed when, naturally, no other dealer would offer him anything like the first dealer’s price. Pearl after pearl, parcel after parcel, did he put by, hoping in vain for better prices than the best. In the end he had to sell in order to pay his Chino creditors. He consigned his whole collection to London for sale. Then did his belief in white creation suffer final damage. He received less for his whole consignment than once, if he had been quick to close, he could have got for two or three of his best pearls.

The last I saw of Ohtami was when he was deckhand on my own pearling lugger, the Betty Pickle. ‘Ohtami,’ I said to him once in jest, ‘you for one know that I pay bigger prices for pearls than any dealer in the world, even in London!’
‘Sudah, Tuan,’ he acquiesced with an expressionless face. For I was the trader who had offered him the extravagant prices on which he had gambled his pride and hate in luckier days.

The other day I had a letter from a correspondent who had ready my earlier books. He wanted to sell me a coconut pearl. Now coconut pearls do not come from coconuts, but from conch shells, and some are handsome in their way, though lusterless, and unlike the real pearl. The best of them are large and well-shaped and of a fine pink color, and have a certain value. But they are not interesting to the pearl dealer, even if, as in this case, they have an interesting history, have belonged for generations to an East Indian chieftain and are supposed to bring good luck. But in the course of his letter my correspondent mentioned the island of Palawan, and that name sent my mind wandering back over the years until it came to rest on a certain island in the South Seas at a time when I was still rash and young. For on Palawan I, too, had held a coconut pearl of supernatural fame and great size.

It was Sayid, my number one pearl tout, who inveigled me to Palawan, where the vegetation is as lush as anywhere on earth. There the ferocious natives, the deadly anopheles mosquito, the crocodiles in the creeks and the fever-hung swamps offer a warm welcome to the white man who ventures thither. Sayid, son of Abu Bakur by a first wife, had his own reasons for making me want to go to Palawan. He wanted to take a wife and badly needed money. Any time is a bad time for needing money, but things were particularly bad at that time, for the pearling fleets had been having bad weather and Sayid’s livelihood depended on the business he brought me. Moreover, as he naïvely told me, he was afraid for the future, too, for he thought I would soon get disgruntled and leave the islands forever.
‘Never mind,’ I rallied him. ‘There are other white men.’
‘But I shall never have a better master,’ he said diplomatically.
‘How so?’ I demanded. ‘I pay no more than other masters.’
He reflected a moment. ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘you have never yet called me a son of a bitch.’
When I laughed he seized the propitious moment. For he was full of guile. With great suavity he recommended his expedition to Palawan.
‘Are you mad?’ said I. ‘Why, it is three days sail in an open vinta!’
‘There are many wonderful pearls in Palawan,’ said Sayid, ‘and the natives will sell cheaply, because the white men do not go there.’
‘How do you know all these?’ I demanded.
He averted his eyes and said negligently: ‘Some fishermen told me!’
I demanded to be shown these Samal fishermen. But the tale had been told to him at third hand. Nevertheless, I went to Palawan. Perhaps I was hypnotised, perhaps crazy. And so, because Sayid wanted to take a second wife, presently I found myself tossing in a frail-bottomed craft on sharky waters. I was seasick and wanted to die.

But one moonlit night we came quietly into San Antonio Bay and I stepped ashore amidst the exotic tropical beauty of Palawan, looking for bargains.

Well, I got what I went for. In an hour at Panglima Hassan’s bamboo shack I exchanged a large bundle of dirty notes for pearls which were enough to compensate me for four days of seasickness. After which the Panglima entertained me as well as he knew how, and there was a great gathering in my honor in the cool of the evening. Finally he showed me his greatest treasure. In my palm I found a coconut pearl, walnut size and perfectly spherical, like a big ball of camphor. I turned it in my hand, trying to think of a compliment, and there came uppermost a large circular spot of green, and in the midst of the green a large black dot, the whole looking like an eyeball in my hand. In a sudden nausea I thought I saw the ‘pupil’ dilate and contract. Shuddering, I handed the object back with a polite murmur.

I Go A – Pearling (continued)