TRAFFIC IN " ORIENT PEARLS." 281 



medium and smaller sized pearls are threaded on white 

 or blue silk ; the different threads are fastened together 

 by a knot of blue ribbon, and they are sold in " masses " 

 of so many threads. 



As no use is made of the oyster-shells, and as the pearl- 

 fishery at Condatchy is fully two thousand years old, the 

 reader will understand that an immense bank has ac- 

 cumulated on the shore, extending for many miles, and 

 averaging several feet in thickness.* 



A very fine bed of aviculas occurs in the Persian Gulf, 

 stretching from Sharja to the Biddulph Islands. The 

 depth of water varies from three to sixteen fathoms. The 

 island of Bahrein despatches three thousand five hundred 

 boats to this fishery, and the shores of the gulf about eight 

 hundred. The crews number ten to fourteen hands, and 

 the whole number engaged in the course of the season 

 exceeds forty thousand. They live principally upon dates 

 and fish. They receive no fixed wages, but one-fourth of 

 the product, which is estimated at 400,000 a year. 



The traffic in Oriental pearls finds its principal outlets 

 in Persia, India, Indo-China, and China. Considerable 

 quantities also are imported into Europe. The rough 

 and irregularly shaped pearls are sold in Russia and Italy, 

 where few women, even of the lowest classes, think their 

 attire complete without a pearl necklace, t As for globular 

 or pyriform pearls of tolerable size, they are purchased by 

 jewellers of every country. Seed-pearls that is, the very 

 smallest are largely sold in Spain, to be employed in 



* Sir Emerson Tennerit, "Natural History of Ceylon," p. 373. 



t "Towards twilight the girls put on their better dresses, and comb their 

 glossy raven hair, heaping it up in great solid braids, and, hanging two long 

 golden earrings in their ears and necklaces round their full necks, come forth 

 conquering and to conquer." W. W. Story, "Roba di Roma," i. 180. 



