THE PEARL FISHERIES OE CEYLON 
173 
mainland is a much smaller and simpler 
project than that of the one across the 
Florida keys, and it is inconceivable how 
it can be much longer delayed. Patron- 
age is waiting, since 100,000 people in a 
season visit the great Dravidian temple 
of Rameswaram on Paumben, a shrine 
of the most elaborate kind, on the most 
stupendous scale — gateways a hundred 
feet high, corridors with carved columns 
and painted ceilings a thousand feet 
long, and other details in proportion. 
THE PEARL FISHERIES OF CEYLON 
By Hugh M. Smith 
United States Deputy Commissioner oe Fisheries 
AS SOON as a traveler sets foot on 
/\ the shores of Ceylon he comes 
/ %. under the subtle charm of the 
land, and is quickly imbued with the 
f.eling that it would be most incongru- 
ous if such a climate did not produce the 
most luxuriant foliage, the most beauti- 
ful flowers, the most luscious fruits ; if 
such a soil did not give forth the most 
wonderful profusion and variety of 
precious stones ; if such surrounding- 
waters did not yield the most resplendent 
pearls. 
Ceylon has long been celebrated for its 
sapphires, rubies, cat's-eyes, moonstones, 
opals, amethysts, carbuncles, and emer- 
alds ; but none of these, nor all of them 
combined, have given to the island the 
fame and the romantic setting that have 
been conferred on it by the product of 
the limpid waters that bathe its coral 
strands and sandy beaches. The poetic 
name of Ceylon today is "The Pearl on 
India's Brow." 
Colombo, the principal city of modern 
Ceylon, is a stopping place for all the 
steamers plying between Europe and 
Asia and Australia, and is therefore vis- 
ited by thousands of tourists and trav- 
elers each year. But the pearl fishery is 
so remote from Colombo that not one 
visitor in ten thousand ever goes there. 
In Colombo a person sees only a frac- 
tion of the great pearl crop, of which 
more than 90 per cent — 99 per cent in 
some years — goes to India ; but this frac- 
tion is sufficiently seductive to the tran- 
sient visitor to render uncertain the time 
and manner of his arrival home, for the 
pearl shops in Colombo are veritable 
magnets that irresistibly attract the con- 
tents of purse and wallet. 
FISHERIES 2,500 YEARS OLD 
The pearl fishery of Ceylon and of 
India and the Persian Gulf is of very 
great antiquity, and is thought to be the 
oldest established fishery now in exist- 
ence. The Sinhalese records, going back 
to about 550 B. C, indicate that the 
fisheries were then well developed, and 
there is reason to believe that they flour- 
ished at least 500 years before. At a 
very early period the pearls brought the 
island into prominence abroad, and were 
in great repute in Rome at the time of 
Pliny, who, referring to Ceylon under 
the name of Taprobane, wrote that it 
was "the most productive of pearls of 
all parts of the world." 
From the most remote period of which 
there is any record, it would appear that 
the pearl fishery played a very important 
part in the history of Ceylon, having had 
more or iCss direct and intimate relations 
with every important aspect of the civ- 
ilization of the island. The information 
available clearly suggests that from the 
earliest times the fishery was conducted 
in much the same way as in our own 
day — the same methods of obtaining the 
pearl oysters, of handling the catch on 
shore, and of extracting the pearls. 
In the words of a local writer, "Ceylon 
is a place with a glorious past. Its once 
magnificent cities are now but a mass of 
crumbled and half-buried ruins; its na- 
tive dynasty has passed away forever; 
