194 Pearls. 



their benefactress ; but in consequence of the ex- 

 haustion of the beds by yearly fishing, sufficient 

 Pearls could not be found in Ceylon, and the order 

 had to be executed in London. Between 1837 

 and 1855 there were no fisheries. 



It is said that 150 Pearls, mostly small ones, 

 have been found in one oyster. This would, no 

 doubt, be a group of seed Pearls, clustered together 

 like a bunch of grapes. At the fishery of 1828, 

 Captain Stewart counted 6*], taken from one of 

 the oysters which fell to him as his official privi- 

 lege ; but the vast proportion of the oysters 

 contained no Pearls. He also saw ten Pearls and 

 some crushed oyster-shells taken from the stomach 

 of a fish called the " chartree." 



In order to extract the Pearls from the oysters, 

 the molluscs are allowed to putrefy, and are then 

 washed in water, whereby the decaying organic 

 matter is removed, and the coveted Pearl, if present, 

 readily found. During this operation, the decom- 

 posing molluscs exhale " an ancient and fish-like 

 smell," which is in the highest degree repulsive. A 

 writer in Eraser's Magazine, for i860, who had 

 visited the fishery at Aripu, says that "a more 

 disgusting spectacle can hardly be conceived than 

 that of a crowd of women and children, employed 



