Pearl Diving

The ancient pearling industry provided the only real income for the people of what is now the UAE. The land was too barren to allow any farming and the people were generally too concerned with finding water, food and other provisions to consider trying to make money. The barter system was their way of trading. A few families would leave the nomadic desert lifestyle and settle on the coast to fish. Some of the fishermen probably found the occasional pearl when wading in the shallows, and kept it until there was an opportunity to barter it. To gather enough oysters to make a living, however, required a huge communal effort, as well as people who were able to dive to depths of around 40 metres without equipment, in order to access the offshore oyster beds.

As India became increasingly prosperous in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, demand for pearls grew. What had been little more than a cottage industry became a major part of local life. Merchants would provide the capital to provide and equip a boat for the diving season, in return for a majority share of the profit accumulated from the sale of the pearls. The rest of the profit was distributed between the captain (nakhutha) and the crew. Pearling offered the possibility of comparative riches if one was lucky enough to be on a boat that discovered a top quality pearl or two. There is evidence of a single pearl being sold for fifteen thousand pounds (sterling) during the 1920s - equivalent to more than three hundred and fifty thousand pounds today¹.

In response to the increased demand for pearls, many more families settled permanently in the coastal villages, which began to grow in importance and influence, particularly Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Others would live on the coast during the four months of the main pearling season, from May to September, and return to the desert in the winter.

British government papers from the 1920s describe the pearling industry in Bahrain, which would have been almost identical to Dubai's.

Until they clear the harbour the boats are propelled by heavy oars, each pulled by two men, who sing the song of the pearlers as they row. Often the fleet returns at night when the moon and the tide are full. The sound of the sailors chanting and the splash of the oars is carried across the still water to the town. The sight of hundreds of white sails, some of them coloured orange by the light of the fires burning on the decks, is one of the most picturesque in the world.

A TRADITIONAL DIVING BOAT

Photograph by Ronald Codrai © Justin Codrai

Mechanical apparatus of any kind is forbidden, and the methods of diving have not changed since they were described by fourteenth-century travellers. Each diver wears a clip like a clothes-peg to close his nostrils, leather sheaths protect his fingers and enable him to (wrench) the shells from the rocks underneath the sea, and each of his big toes is guarded by a similar sheath. He descends on a rope which has a stone weight attached to it. This is hauled up when he reaches the bottom. Round his neck is slung a string bag, which he fills with shells, attached to a rope with which his comrade, the puller, draws him up again when he gives the signal. Divers remain below the surface for nearly a minute and a half, and they descend about 30 times in one day, often to a depth of 14 fathoms. The shells are heaped on deck during the day and opened in the evening under the vigilant eye of the captain, who puts away the pearls in his sea chest. No diver knows whether it is his shell that contained a pearl. While the men are working they take neither food nor drink, but they eat in the early morning and after sunset they have a meal of rice and dates and fish. The shells are thrown back into the sea, the divers believing that oysters feed upon the empty shells. They believe too, that drops of rain which are caught by the oysters at night form pearls.

The work is very strenuous and conditions are hard, but the divers on the whole are healthy and many of them show unusually fine muscular development...

…The men are paid no wages, but they receive a share in the profits of the season. Divers are entitled to twice the amount which is paid to a puller, as their work is more arduous. There are several different diving systems, and all of them are very ancient…

Records of Dubai 1761 - 1960 (Volume 3) pg. 56-57

Although the pearling industry offered potential wealth, it was also very dangerous for the divers, both physically and financially. In order to provide for their families over the months they were at sea, most would take advances from the owner of the boat. If their seasonal catch was not enough to cover their advances, they were in the owner's debt at the start of the next season, when they would have to get another advance. One bad diving season could lead to a lifetime of debt for the divers. A good season, on the other hand, could provide the means to acquire land in an oasis such as Al Ain and the luxury of a date garden.

In the early 1930s, the worldwide economic depression and the Japanese discovery of the cultured pearl (a pearl created by placing a shell bead inside an oyster manually) spelt disaster for the Gulf's pearling industry. The vision of the Al Maktoum family meant that Dubai, thanks to its free trade port, was not as badly affected as the rest of the region. Nevertheless, it was a serious blow to the local economy - one from which it would not fully recover until the discovery of oil.
1. Calculated using the online resources of the Economic History Services website www.eh.net

Sources:
UAE: A New Perspective - Trident Press Ltd, 2001
Records of Dubai 1761 - 1960 - Archive Editions, 1994

Coffee

Coffee is usually propagated by seeds. The traditional method of planting coffee is to put 20 seeds in each hole at the beginning of the rainy season; half are eliminated naturally. A more effective method of growing coffee, used in Brazil, is to raise seedlings in nurseries that are then planted outside at six to twelve months. Coffee is often intercropped with food crops, such as corn, beans, or rice during the first few years of cultivation.^.

Of the two main species grown, arabica coffee (from C. arabica) is generally more highly regarded than robusta coffee (from C. canephora); robusta tends to be bitter and have less flavor but better body than arabica. For these reasons, about three-quarters of coffee cultivated worldwide is C. arabica. Robusta strains also contain about 40–50% more caffeine than arabica.^. For this reason, it is used as an inexpensive substitute for arabica in many commercial coffee blends. Good quality robusta beans are used in some espresso blends to provide a full-bodied taste, a better foam head (known as crema), and to lower the ingredient cost.^.

However, Coffea canephora is less susceptible to disease than C. arabica and can be cultivated in lower altitudes and warmer climates where C. arabica will not thrive. The robusta strain was first collected in 1890 from the Lomani, a tributary of the Congo River, and was conveyed from Zaire to Brussels to Java around 1900. From Java, further breeding resulted in the establishment of robusta plantations in many countries. In particular, the spread of the devastating coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix), to which C. arabica is vulnerable, hastened the uptake of the resistant robusta. Coffee leaf rust is found in virtually all countries that produce coffee.^]

Over 900 species of insect have been recorded as pests of coffee crops worldwide. Of these, over a third are beetles, and over a quarter are bugs. Some 20 species of nematodes, 9 species of mites, several snails and slugs also attack the crop. Birds and rodents sometimes eat coffee berries but their impact is minor compared to invertebrates. In general, arabica is the more sensitive species to invertebrate predation overall. Each part of the coffee plant is assailed by different animals. Nematodes attack the roots, and borer beetles burrow into stems and woody material, the foliage is attacked by over 100 species of larvae (caterpillars) of .

Mass spraying of insecticides has often proven disastrous, as the predators of the pests are more sensitive than the pests themselves.^. Instead, integrated pest management has developed, using techniques such as targeted treatment of pest outbreaks, and managing crop environment away from conditions favouring pests. Branches infested with scale are often cut and left on the ground, which promotes scale parasites to not only attack the scale on the fallen branches but in the plant as well

Tents

Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say:
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?
And this first Summer month that brings the Rose
Shall take "Jamshyd" and "Kaikobad" away
A book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a loaf of bread and though
Beside me singing in the Wilderness
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow
You rising Moon that looks for us again
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane
How oft hereafter rising look for us
Through the same garden and for one in vain

For I remember stopping by the way
To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay
And with its all-obliterated tongue
It murmur'd _"Gently, Brother, Gently, pray!"

Desert

Desert

 

Plants

Animals

Climate


Mojave Desert

Sonoran Desert
In this report you will learn about Hot and Dry Deserts and Cold Deserts. I hope you enjoy!

A Hot and Dry Desert is, as you can tell from the name, hot and dry. Most Hot and Dry Deserts don't have very many plants. They do have some low down plants though. The only animals they have that can survive have the ability to burrow under ground. This is because they would not be able to live in the hot sun and heat. They only come out in the night when it is a little cooler.

A cold desert is a desert that has snow in the winter instead of just dropping a few degrees in temperature like they would in a Hot and Dry Desert. It never gets warm enough for plants to grow. Just maybe a few grasses and mosses. The animals in Cold Deserts also have to burrow but in this case to keep warm, not cool. That is why you might find some of the same animals here as you would in the Hot and Dry Deserts.

Deserts cover about one fifth of the Earth's land surface. Most Hot and Dry Deserts are near the Tropic of Cancer or the Tropic of Capricorn. Cold Deserts are near the Arctic part of the world.

Hot and Dry Deserts temperature ranges from 20 to 25° C. The extreme maximum temperature for Hot Desert ranges from 43.5 to 49° C. Cold Deserts temperature in winter ranges from -2 to 4° C and in the summer 21 to 26° C a year

The precipitation in Hot and Dry Deserts and the precipitation in Cold Deserts is different. Hot and Dry Deserts usually have very little rainfall and/or concentrated rainfall in short periods between long rainless periods. This averages out to under 15 cm a year. Cold Deserts usually have lots of snow. They also have rain around spring. This averages out to 15 - 26 cm a year.

Hot and Dry Deserts are warm throughout the fall and spring seasons and very hot during the summer. the winters usually have very little if any rainfall. Cold Deserts have quite a bit of snow during winter. The summer and the beginning of the spring are barely warm enough for a few lichens, grasses and mosses to grow.

Hot and Dry Deserts vegetation is very rare. Plants are almost all ground-hugging shrubs and short woody trees. All of the leaves are replete (packed with nutrients). Some examples of these kinds of plant are Turpentine Bush, Prickly Pears, and Brittle Bush. For all of these plants to survive they have to have adaptations. Some of the adaptations in this case are the ability to store water for long periods of time and the ability to stand the hot weather.
Cold Desert's plants are scattered. In areas with little shade,about 10 percent of the ground is covered with plants. In some areas of sagebrush it reaches 85 percent. The height of scrub varies from 15 cm to 122 cm. All plants are either deciduous and more or less contain spiny leaves.
Hot and Dry Deserts animals include small nocturnal (only active at night) carnivores. There are also insects, arachnids, reptiles, and birds. Some examples of these animals are Borrowers, Mourning Wheatears, and Horned Vipers. Cold Deserts have animals like Antelope, Ground Squirrels, Jack Rabbits, and Kangaroo Rats