beautiful view which stretches away towards Astypalæa and Carpathos, and watching the progress of the workmen at every stroke. My food is brought to me in the middle of the day, when we all sit down under the shade of the rock and eat rustic fare.
XXVII.
Calymnos, December 8, 1854.
The first sheet of this letter has been at the bottom of the sea in several fathoms water. The caique in which it was despatched to Rhodes was capsized by the carelessness of the captain, and sank. The Calymniote divers, notwithstanding the coldness of the weather, contrived to descend several fathoms, fasten ropes to the caique, and drag it into shallow water. The inhabitants of Calymnos, like those of Syme, Chalce, and other small islands near Rhodes, are celebrated as divers, and spend the whole summer in fishing up sponges on the coasts of Asia Minor and Syria. In the month of May a little fleet of caiques sets sail from Calymnos, manned by the greater part of the able-bodied male population. The profits of the sponge-fishery are very considerable. The divers in each caique enter into partnership. They are generally poor men, and the money for rigging out the caiques and for the maintenance of the crew during their voyage is lent to them by the richer Calymniotes, who stay at home and trade in sponges. On the return of the
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