The Tinnevelly Pearl Banks. 419 



In those days the sovereign received a tenth, and the divers a 

 twentieth of the proceeds of the fishery. The great number 

 of pearls from these Tinnevelly banks excited the wonder 

 of all the bold wanderers who completed the perilous voyage 

 to India in early times. Friar Jordanus, a quaint old mis- 

 sionary bishop, who was in India about 1330, says that 8000 

 boats were then engaged in this fishery and that of Ceylon, 

 and that the quantity of pearls was astounding, and almost 

 incredible. The head-quarters of the fishery was then, and 

 indeed from the days of Ptolemy to the seventeenth century 

 continued to be, at Chayl or Coil, literally " the temple/' on 

 the sandy promontory of Eamnad, which sends off a reef of 

 rocks towards Ceylon, known as Adam's Bridge. OldLudovico 

 di Varthema mentions having seen the pearls fished for in the 

 sea near the city of Chayl, in about 1500 a.d., and Barbosa, 

 who travelled about the same time, says that the people of 

 Chayl are expert jewellers who trade in pearls. This place is, 

 as Dr. Vincent has clearly shown, the Koru of Ptolemy, the 

 Kolkhi of the author of the Periplus, the Koil or Chayl of the 

 travellers of the middle ages, the Bamana-Koil (temple of 

 Eama) of the natives, the same as the sacred promontory of 

 Eamnad and isle of Eameswaram, the head- quarters of the 

 Indian pearl fishery from time immemorial. 



But Tuticorin, the present head-quarters of the fishery, has 

 supplanted the ancient Coil for the last two centuries; and, 

 since the middle of the seventeenth century, the powers which 

 have successively presided over the fishery, whether native, 

 Portuguese, Dutch, or English, have uniformly taken their 

 station at this little port, which is about ninety miles north- 

 east of Cape Comorin, on the Tinnevelly coast. When the 

 Portuguese were all powerful on the coast, the Jesuits were 

 allowed the proceeds of one day's fishing, and the owners of 

 the boats had one draught every fishing day. The Naik of 

 Madura, the sovereign whose -family succeeded the ancient 

 Pandyon dynasty, also had the proceeds of one day as Lord of 

 the coast. These Naiks were the builders of all the magnificent 

 edifices which now beautify the city of Madura, and their dues 

 from the fishery were probably used as offerings to Minakshi, 

 the fish-eyed goddess of the vast Madura pagoda, who now 

 possesses, amongst her jewellery, a numerous collection of ex- 

 quisitely beautiful pearl ornaments. In the days of the Naiks 

 and Portuguese there were 400 or 500 vessels at the annual 

 fishery, carrying sixty to ninety men each, a third of whom 

 were divers ; and at the subsequent fair held at Tuticorin there 

 was an assembly of from 50,000 to 60,000 persons. The divers, 

 at that time, were chiefly Christians from Malabar. Captain 

 Hamilton, who was travelling in the East from 1688 to 1723, 



