37 



traders in the coast villages who resell to merchants 

 who export them to Calcutta from time to time. 



The fishermen are mostly Parawas living in the 

 villages between Velinjam, near Trivandrum, in the north 

 and Kolachel in the south — the beds being situated off 

 this part of the coast. From what I can glean from divers 

 who have been to this fishery, it is capable of consider- 

 able development although the merchants say the shells 

 are soft under the saw and inferior both in colour and in 

 hardness to Tuticorin shells. 



This fishery was used by the Tuticorin chank fishers 

 in 1900 as a lever whereby to extort better terms ; in this 

 year they struck work at Tuticorin and proceeded to 

 Travancore to fish on their own account. The manoeuvre 

 was successful, and the rate being raised, they returned 

 to Tuticorin and resumed work. 



(5) KATHIAWAR FISHERY. 



The shells fished off this coast are of good 

 quality, well esteemed in the Bengal trade where they 

 are known as Surti shells — an echo of the day when Surat 

 was the great emporium of the Kathiawar and Konkhan 

 coasts. To-day tiie shells are sent to Bombay, whence 

 they are shipped to Calcutta. The quantity yielded is 

 approximately 200 bags per annum. 



Okhamandal, the north-western extremity of Kathia- 

 war, which forms an outlying portion of the Gaekwar of 

 Baroda's dominions, furnishes a considerable proportion 

 of this export. The right to collect the shells is leased 

 out at intervals for a term of years, the proceeds for 

 the five years ending 1906 amounting to an average of 

 Rs. 151 per annum. Unlike other Indian chank fisheries 

 the shells on this coast are all collected at spring tides 

 when great areas of the littoral are uncovered at the 

 time of low water. A certain proportion of the shells 

 are sold to pilgrims who resort to the holy shrines at 

 Bet and Dwarka, the district of Okhamandal from its 

 association with Krishna forming one of the chief holy 

 lands of the Hindus, who delight to take home as a 

 sacred souvenir, one of the shells loved of this god. Full 

 details of this fishery and of the enactments made to safe- 

 guard it, are to be found in Part I of my " Report to the 

 Government of Baroda on the Marine Zoology of 

 Okhamandal in Kathiawar," London 1909. 



