2 CEYLON PEARL OYSTER REPORT 



early fishery. Many other references could be given. In the eighth to eleventh 

 centuries, trade in the East was in the hands of the Persians and Arabs, and we find 

 Arab writers alluding to the pearls. We know also that they enriched the kings of 

 Ceylon in the days of Marco Polo (1291). One record, given by Friar Joed anus, 

 says that in 1330 about 8000 boats were engaged in the pearl fisheries of the Gulf of 

 Manaar. 



Cesar Frederick, a Venetian merchant (1563), crossed from India to Chilaw 

 (about the middle of the West Coast of Ceylon) to be present at a pearl fishery, the 

 methods of which were very much as they woidd be at the present day. We are told 

 that the Tamil name " Salubham" (Sea-of-Gain) given to the Gulf of Manaar because 

 of its pearl banks, was also applied to Chilaw, which in former times was the town 

 nearest to the fishery. The centre of the pearl fishery is now much further north, 

 but the oyster " paars" still exist off Chilaw, and were fished at least thrice during the 

 nineteenth century, in 1803, 1815, and 1884. And so we continue to have glimpses,* 

 through the centuries, of this ancient and highly prized industry being carried on 

 with little or no change, first under the Singhalese kings of Kandy and the Tamil 

 kings of Jaffna, and subsequently under the successive European rulers. At the time 

 when RiBEYRof wrote (1685), Aripu was, as it has been since, the centre of the 

 northern fisheries, and from the description given, it is evident that the method of 

 fishing in these Portuguese times was as we see it now, even to the manning of the 

 divers' boats and the cessation of diving at noon. As would be expected, we have 

 much more definite records of the details of the fisheries during the Dutch and British 

 occupations than in previous times. We have a vivid description, by Martin, of a 

 fishery which took place off Tuticorin in 1700. Percival (1803) and Cordiner (1807) 

 both give excellent accounts of the early British fisheries. The last Dutch fishery 

 took place in 1768, and the first under English control in 1796 and for this fishery 

 the arrangements were made before the surrender of Colombo. 



* Here is another glimpse of the early native fisheries which I have just (August 18th, 1903) received 

 from Sir William Twynam of Jaffna. He says : " It is an extract from the translation of an old Tamil 

 work called the ' Kalveddu,' given to me some time ago by a Mr. Tilleaxobelam, employed in the 

 Jaffna Kachcheri" " Vidanarayanen Cheddi and the Puravu men who fished pearls by paying tribute to 

 Alliyarasani, daughter of Pandiya, king of Madura, who went on a voyage, experienced bad weather 

 in the sea, and were driven to the shores of Lanka, where they founded Karainerkai (Karativo) and 

 Kutiraimalai (Kodramallai). Vidaxarayaxex Cheddi had the treasures of his ship stored there by the 

 Puravus, and established pearl fisheries at Kadalihilapam (Chilavaturai) and Kallachihilapam (Chilaw), 

 and introduced the trees which change iron into gold," &c, &c. 



Sir W. Twyxam adds : " The Puravu divers referred to were afterwards converted to Roman 

 Catholicism by St. Fraxcis Xavier, and their descendants are, I believe, the Roman Catholic Puravu 

 divers who now come to our fisheries from Tuticorin and other ports in Southern India ; " and " some 

 large mounds of old oyster shells were pointed out to me in the neighboiu'hood of Marichchukaddi as 

 having been the accumulations of Queen Alliyarasaxi's fisheries." 



t My copy is Le Grand's translation, "Histoire de l'lsle de Ceylan," Amsterdam, 1701; I believe it 

 is doubtful whether the original Portuguese of Captain Ribeyro was ever published. 



