daybreak. Each boat has about ten rowers
and as many divers, with a steersman. There
is a stage at each side of the boat; from this
stage the divers descend into the water, five
working while the other five are resting. The
natives, by constant practice from childhood,
have acquired the habit of using the toes as
nimbly as we do our thumbs and fingers; and
the pearl-diver avails himself of this power.
He grasps with the toes of the right foot a
rope from which a stone of twenty pounds
weight or so is suspended, and with those of
the left a net bag, having the mouth kept
open by a hoop; with his right hand he
grasps a second rope, and with his left he holds
his nostrils. Some of them oil their bodies,
and some stuff their ears and nostrils with
cotton. Down they go, the heavy stone facilitating
the descent, and the rope in the right
hand maintaining their communication with the
boat. Sometimes the diver hangs the net round
his neck; but, at any rate, he uses his hands so
nimbly as to pick up as many oysters as he can
before his breath fails him, and this may amount
to a hundred if the haul is a good one. He
then gives a signal by means of his rope, and
the boatmen draw him up. Thus in gangs of
five they do their work, each gang being
succeeded by another which have had their short
period of rest; and all the divers make many
plunges in the course of a day. The actual
number of working hours is small; but the
work is very trying, and cannot be unduly
continued with impunity. The divers greatly dread
the ground-shark, a terrible visitor in those seas;
and, in the Persian Gulf fisheries, there is the
sword-fish to add to the grim contingencies.
The men pray, before the fleet of boats leaves
the shore, that they may be protected from
these enemies; fortified, too, in some districts
by the exorcisms of shark-charmers, who
manage to dovetail their paganism with their
Christianity in a curious way.

What it is that these men bring up from the
sea bottom is not exactly an oyster; it is rather
like a large mussel, which has the power of
forming a byssus or short cable of fibres with
which to anchor itself to a rock; and, as each
bank consists of rocky ground rising in patches
from a sandy bottom (with perhaps thirty or
forty feet of water over them), there is plenty
of anchoring-ground for the fish.

After all, what is a pearl? Everybody knows
that it is found within the shell, but everybody
disputes as to the how and the why of its formation.
When the boats—perhaps a hundred or
more in a fleet, and each bringing (having its
burthen of eight to fifteen tons) with it as
many oysters as the richness of the catch will
allow—have come to land, the oysters are
thrown into pits, where they are allowed so
far to putrify as to open easily, and reveal
the treasure within. But there may be no
such treasure. The oyster makes its pearl
at its own good time, and there is no external
sign to denote what the shell may contain.
Whether the pearl be a disease; or a
foreign substance which the oyster wishes to hide
by a varnish of that beautiful something that we
call mother-of-pearl; or whether it be a
congealed drop of dew swallowed by the oyster
(as suggested by Pliny); or an ovum of
exaggerated growth; or a collection of siliceous
particles from the food eaten by the
oyster; or an annoying parasite which the
fish smothers with the nacreous or mother-of-pearl
substance, are questions still waiting for
solution. The pretty term, mother-of-pearl,
bears significant testimony to the prevalent
belief that the substance of the pearl is the
same in kind as the lustrous, iridescent lining
of the shell—a lining whith renders the pearl-shell
valuable in the market, whether it encloses
a pearl or not.

The pearl-fishery is quite a lottery—an
uncertainty from beginning to end; and an
intense speculative interest therefore surrounds
it. The oysters are really bought before the
shells are opened, and before it is known
whether they contain any pearls or not. If
there be any, the pearl may be worth a few
shillings or hundreds of pounds. Mr. Markham
states that, when a fishing is about to take
place, one thousand oysters are fished up,
opened, and put into a canoe; they are
regarded as a sample of the whole fishery, likely,
so far as can be guessed, to present a fair
average quality. The pearls found in them
are submitted to the inspection of the most
experienced pearl-merchants, who classify them,
according to a certain system, into no less
than ten kinds: anie, pearls of perfect sphericity
and lustre; anathorie, failing slightly in one or
other of these two qualities; masengoe, failing
slightly in both; kalippo, failing still more;
karowel, double pearls; pœsal, misshapen
pearls; oodwoe, beauty (this seems rather
indefinite); mandangoe, bent or folded pearls; kural,
very small and misshapen; and thool, seed-pearls.
The number of pearls of each of these
classes found in the sample is announced by the
experts, and this establishes the price of the
shells at the outset; but the price fluctuates
afterwards, according to the frequency of the
prizes or rich hauls. In the year eighteen
hundred and sixty-one, the price began at seventy
to eighty rupees per thousand shells; but, as
the result did not bear out the anticipations of
the first purchasers, the price gradually lowered
to forty, twenty, and even as low as seventeen
rupees. The sales were held on the beach,
about two miles north of the town of Tuticorin,
at a place called the Silawatooree, a Tamil
name for a fish-market. The shells were sold
on large platforms, called kottoos; there were
a few bungalows and hundreds of huts around,
which were the scene of lively and exciting
bargainings. In the preceding year, when
the Tinnevelly fishery revived after thirty
years' stagnation, the price began at fifteen
rupees per thousand shells, and went up to forty
rupees. The number fished up and sold during
that season was nearly sixteen millions; and the
Madras government netted twenty thousand