History of the principal pearl banks. 31 



re-discovered* the bank about L 860, and watched it carefully after his appointment 

 as [nspector in L863. And yet there is reason to believe that it was known to the 



natives, and that there may have been native fisheries there in earl}' times, extending 

 even to the period of the Portuguese occupation. Johann Jacob Saar (1662), in 

 describing the capture of Manaar by the Dutch, referred to one important pearl hank 

 at 3 miles' and another at 10 miles' distance from Manaar. These miles, being- Dutch, 

 are from 3h to 4 times as long as English, and consequently these two banks were 

 respectively from 10 to 12 and from 36 to 40 miles to the south distances which 

 correspond with the positions of the Cheval and Muttuvaratu paars. The 

 Muttuvaratu Paar is 3 miles in length and covers the ground between 36 and 39 miles 

 from Manaar. It is unlikely that so much importance should have been attached to 

 this bank by the Portuguese and the Dutch unless it had yielded fisheries. 



When Captain Donnan inspected the bank in 1886, it had what was estimated at 

 27,000,000 of oysters in their second year. There must have been many more. 

 When inspected in November, 1887, a still larger estimate was made (still much 

 under the mark), and this excellent bed of oysters yielded eventually the three very 

 profitable fisheries of 1889, 1890, and 1891, during which in all about 1 17,000,000 of 



* The story of this discovery is so interesting that I add it here in Captain Don nan's own words. He 

 told it to me on the pearl banks in 1902, and I have now got him to write it out, and I quote from his 

 letter of July 11th, 1904: " My first visit to the Muttuvaratu Paar was, as far as I can remember, in 

 November, I860, or in March, 1861. I was then in command of the s.s. ' Pearl,' and was on a visit to the 

 pearl banks under the direction of Captain Pritchard, Master Attendant at Colombo and then Acting 

 Superintendent of the Pearl Fishery. Pritcharo gave the chart of the banks to me and told me to 

 anchor on each bank according to the bearings, but on getting on the chart bearings of the banks off 

 Karativo I found we were oft' the bank of soundings, and that the chart was unreliable. I therefore 

 suggested to Pritchard that I should go down south of Dutch Bay again and start afresh, steering north 

 and keeping in 8 fathoms water, and stopping every quarter of a mile or so and sending down a diver. 

 Pritchard thought that was a good idea and told me to carry it out, which I did. After a great many 

 stops and dives of ' Chippie Illai ' (no oysters) at last the diver reported oysters, so I anchored and sent 

 out the boats to-inspect, the result being a find of a bed of full-grown oysters mostly all dead and very 

 few found alive. This bank would no doubt have yielded a good fishery if it had been discovered a year 

 sooner. I made a note of the position of the bank, and when I became Inspector of Pearl Banks I 

 determined to visit that spot every two or three years, as I imagined that the spot where oysters had 

 matured would be a likely spot for them to come on again, but it was not until 1886 that I was rewarded 

 fur my perseverance by finding a large bank of young oysters which yielded three fisheries in succession. 



When the oysters were approaching maturity, I looked up Stfaakts book to see if he had any record 

 of a bank in that neighbourhood, and I found that in the Dutch time a native of Calpantine had given 

 information of a bank, named Muttwartu Paar, some 8 miles north-west of Calpantine Flagstaff. There 

 was no information as to the position of the flagstaff, but I imagined that the bank referred to might 

 possibly be the one I had discovered. I thereupon consulted the Adigar of Manaar as to the meaning of 

 the word Muttwartu, and he replied that the proper name must be Muttuvaratu Paar, which means the 

 bank where the pearls come, so I then decided that the bank I had discovered should bear that name. 



"It is, I think, very probable that my Muttuvaratu Paar is the same as the one referred to in the 

 Dutch records, and in that case my discovery was only a re-discovery of an old bank that had been lost 

 for atjes." 



