54 BRITISH PEARL-FISHERY. 



or natives of the island, to the coast, but crowds of specu- 

 lators from all parts of the vast Indian peninsula, whose 

 variety of language, manners, and dress is described as being 

 very striking and pleasing. The temporary abodes erected 

 by them, or for them, are also curious and picturesque. On 

 a solitary sea-shore a mass of almost innumerable huts is at 

 once seen to arise on the eve of the fishery. These huts are 

 merely composed of a few poles stuck in the ground, inter- 

 woven with light bamboos, and covered with the leaves of 

 the cocoa-nut tree ; " yet," says M. de Noe, " these ephe- 

 meral habitations often shelter as many as one hundred and 

 fifty thousand persons." * 



The ancients had also pearl-fisheries in the Red Sea, but 

 they are now either exhausted or neglected, and cities of the 

 greatest celebrity have in consequence sunk into insignifi- 

 cance or total ruin. Dahalac was the chief port of the pearl- 

 trade on the southern part of the Red Sea, and Suakem on 

 the north ; and under the Ptolemies, or even long after, in 

 the time of the caliphs, these were islands whose merchants 

 were princes : but their bustle and glory have long since de- 

 parted, and they are now thinly inhabited by a race of mise- 

 rable fishermen. j- In the Mediterranean, pearls were pro- 

 cured from the Straits of Bosphorus near Constantinople, 

 from Actium in Acarnania, and " in our seas of Italic," pro- 

 bably in the latter case taken from the shell of the Pinna, 

 but the pearls were never held in much esteem, and the 

 fisheries appear to have been early forsaken. I have also to 

 recall to yovir memory the fact related by some historians of 

 good authority, that the early fame which Britain had ac- 

 quired for her fertility in these gems was the main induce- 

 ment of Csesar to invade its shores ; " the onelie desire of 

 them caused Caesar," to adopt the words of Holinshed, " to 

 adventure hither, after he had scene the quantities and heard 

 of ourplentie of them, while he abode in France, and whereof 

 he made a taberd which he offered up in Rome to Venus, 

 where it hung long after as a rich and notable oblation and 

 testimonie of the riches of our countrie."J The historian's 



* See Sprat's Hist. Roy. Soc. 169 ; Percival's Ceylon ; Malt^ Brun's 

 Geography, iii. 227 ; and Penny Magazine, 1833, 174. Bishop Heber says, 

 " The pearl-fishery was at one time very productive, hut some years ago it 

 entirely failed, and though it has lately been resumed, the success has been 

 small." — Journal iii. 146, 8vo. 



t Bruce's Travels in Abyssinia, ii. 246 — 249. 



X Desc. of England, 239. Browne has versified the story in the fullowing 



" -" She wept, 



the fair Neriades, 



