and, when the day's diving is ended, eight oysters are laid out for the armador, eight for the Busos, and two for the government.
"In the year 1831, one vessel with seventy Busos, another with fifty, and two with thirty each, and two boats with ten each, from the coast of Sonora, engaged in this fishery. The one brought in forty ounces of pearls, valued at $6500; another, twenty-one ounces, valued at $3000; another, twelve ounces, valued at $2000, and the two boats a proportionate quantity. There were, in the same season, ten or twelve other vessels, from other parts, employed in the same trade, which, if equally successful, swelled the value of pearls taken in that year to the sum of more than forty thousand dollars."—Farnham's Scenes in the Pacific, p. 307.
28 (Return)
Report of M. L. Smith, Lieutenant of Topographical Engineers, United States Army.
29 (Return)
Lieut. Smith's Report.