20 



take. These fish-charmers are termed Abraianian and 

 their charm holds good for that day only, for at night 

 they dissolve the charm so that the fishes can work 

 misch'efat their will. These Abraiaman know also how 

 t ) charm beasts and birds and every living thing " (" The 

 Book of Ser Marco Polo," Yule, London, 1871). Marco 

 Polo's information on South Indian customs is so re- 

 markably accurate in those points where we can check 

 his statements that it becomes reasonably certain that 

 the shark-charmers were Brahman priests (Abraiaman) 

 during the days when the Parawas professed the Hindu 

 religion. 



So long as catches are good, no people are less 

 superstitious than these divers — their thoughts revolve 

 around work and toddy alone ; with poor results al 1 

 manner of superstitions crop up — some one has laid 

 a spell on the weather out of spite or they have done 

 some unchancy thing such as meeting a Brahman or a 

 widow when leaving home. 



With the approach of the south-west monsoon in May 

 a heavy swell and current from the south are frequently 

 experienced on the chank beds. Not infrequently this 

 current brings shoals of medusae and siphonophorcs 

 into the Gulf, and these the divers dread even more 

 than sharks. At times the water is alive with shoals 

 of the frilly Chrysaora pulsating their way along 

 or with myriads of the beautiful purple-blue floats of the 

 Portuguese man-o'-war [Pkysalia), and when this hap- 

 pens, good-bye may be said to any further fishing. 



But the chief difficulty experienced in the successful 

 prosecution of a chank fishery arises when a pearl fishery 

 takes place the same season. The divers can think of 

 nothing else, and live for weeks beforehand a ha))py 

 careless idle life on money borrowed in anticipation of the 

 big gains to be had, honestly or otherwise, when the 

 pearl harvest begins. Persuasion is vain under such 

 circumstances and when the pearl fishery begins, the 

 chank one has to be closed. Whether their gains be 

 great or not, the divers at the end of a pearl fishery come 

 home tired out and in no condition to resume the hard 

 labour of chank fishing. The philosophic attitude is to 

 view these interruptions as useful intervals when the 

 chank population may raise up seed to themselves in 



