THE ABALONES
BY SAM WARE
ON the coast of Mendocino County, California, a few miles south of the quaint little hamlet of Mendocino, in a deep gorge near the margin of the ocean so narrow and gloomy as to merit its appellation, Dark Gulch is a queer little group of cabins which reminds one of pictures of the Flowery Kingdom. It is a camp of Japanese fishermen, who have lately introduced a novel method of abalone deep-water fishing by means of a diver. The colony consists of fourteen men and one woman, eight of whom attend to the fishing part of the business while the remainder stay at home to dry the molhisks and prepare them for shipment, a process which covers a period of three months.
The capitalist of the settlement, whose distinction from the rest is a pair of canvas shoes, a luxury in which none of the rest indulge, is a short, rather corpulent little Japanese of a pleasant and courteous disposition. He sports a gold watch and rusty steel chain with a tin buck-saw as charm. He is very communicative, but equally as hard to understand. After a tedious discussion the fact was gleaned from him that the abalones were shipped to a Chinese firm in San Francisco, which re-shipped them to China, where they are highly prized as a delicacy. In San Francisco theybring from $5 to $6 per cental. An average abalone dried weighs about two ounces. The average catch of the eight fishermen is about 2,300 abalones a day.
As the boat approached shore in the evening, laden with a day’s catch, the little proprietor assured me that the vessel was “a boat Japan style, Japan style, Japan style.”
This boat is nearly forty feet long, the sides being constructed of two-inch planks. Five timbers, about four by four inches in size, one secured transversely over the deck, protruding about three feet beyond the gunwale. Upon these are rested the huge sculls by which the boat is propelled. These sculls, eight in number, are about thirty feet in length, being composed of two pieces of timber so joined that the upper end, about nine feet long, will work horizontally while the lower end is immersed. The whole crew at these skulls, aided by a square sail when the weather is favorable, make the vessel travel at the astonishing rate of three miles an hour. The stern of the vessel is set in about two feet from the ends of the side pieces, giving the boat an appearance of being entirely open at one end. This craft, though of crude workmanship, has some ornamentation. On the ends of the planks which protrude behind the stern of the boat are little diamondshaped daubs of white paint, forming a contrast with the black color of the vessel. Everything, in fact, in connection with the settlement, shows some primitive attempt at art.
The fishermen have a cheap diving suit, with a galvanized helmet, and the air is supplied by a twocylinder pump. The diver-—only one dares to go down—takes to the water at nine, comes up at twelve, is down again from one until four. He takes down with him a net-like basket, which he sends up in about twenty minutes, another being sent down while it is emptied. This holds about all four men can lift into the boat. At about four o’clock the diver comes up, and they set sail for the camp, a voyage of about two hours. Arriving there, they arouse the whole settlement, who turn out en masse to man the huge windlass by which the boat is pulled up a rude skid-way built for that purpose. The abalones are weighed, shells and all, as they are taken from the boat, to determine what the boatmen shall receive for their day’s labor. Two Japanese, armed with chisels, then attack the sluggish mass of animal life and proceed to divert them of their shells. The slimy mollusks are then thrown into the salt tubs, thence to be transported to a vat where they lay in salt over night.
The next morning they are washed and thrown into boiling water to remove the slime and a layer of dark pigment around the edges. After another washing in cold water they are placed in trays constructed of wire netting, such as is used for fencing in poultry yards, and deposited in a little dryhouse situated on the hillside.
When all moisture has dripped off, the trays are taken outside and exposed to the sun, though returned to the dry-house on foggy days and every night.
When all suspicion of dampness has disappeared, the abalones are placed upon mats and laid upon the beach. Every night these mats are gathered up and piled in a stack, the whole being covered by a large sheet of canvas.
When sufficiently dried they are packed in burlap sacks, weighing about two hundred pounds to the sack. The shipper cannot set his own figure and what he receives depends upon the caprice of the Chinece commission merchant.
This colony has been in operation about four months, and many old set-tiers have apprehensions that the abalone crop will soon become extinct.
This product of the ocean has been for years the chief food staple of the Indians of the coast, and is
regarded as a luxury by white residents, whose only method of obtaining them has been by prying them off the rocks at low tide by means of an iron bar, at the expense of wet feet and an occasional fall on the slippery rocks.
There was an appeal to the Board of Supervisors of the county who declared it illegal to capture abalones for the market without a county license which costs $100 per quarter. This met with some disfavor, and at a later meeting of the Board the Japanese were let off with a license of $25 per quarter, which they paid without complaint. The Japanese fishing boat, with its queer looking sculls and odd-appearing occupants, has become a part, as it were, of the Mendocino scenery.”
Reference Data:
Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, by Bret Harte, 1903, pages 534-6
I found this interesting. One more way to earn a living. Thanks Sam
Wayne
R1b Group