Feb. 1, 1865.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



295 



THE TINNEVELLY PEARL-BANKS. 



BY CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, P.S.A., F.R.G.S.* 



From time immemorial the pearl fishery in the narrow sea which 

 separates India from the Island of Ceylon has been famous in all the 

 marts of the Old World, and has rivalled the still more renowned fishery 

 of Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf. Opinions have always varied respect- 

 ing the value of the pearls from these fisheries. Tavernier, the old 

 travelling jeweller, said, in 1651, that the pearls from the sea that 

 washes the walls of Manaar, in Ceylon, are, for their roundness and 

 water, the fairest that are found, but rarely weigh three or four carats. 

 Master Ralph Finch, a London merchant, who made a voyage to the 

 Indies in 1583, says, on the other hand, that though the pearls of Cape 

 Comorin are very plentiful, they have not the right orient lustre that 

 those of Bahrein have. Whatever the truth may be respecting the 

 water and orient lustre of the pearls of these rival fisheries, there can 

 be no doubt that a vast concourse of merchants and others has been 

 annually attracted to the fisheries in the Gulf of Manaar from the 

 most ancient times, which is sufficient evidence of their value. 



The Ceylon fisheries have retained their old reputation down to 

 modern times. But it is to the smaller and hitherto less productive 

 pearl-banks, on the opposite side of the Manaar Gulf, off the shores of 

 the Indian Collectorate of Tinnevelly, that the reader's attention is re- 

 quested. An experiment, with a view to the improvement of the fishery, 

 has now been commenced there, which possseses considerable scientific 

 and general interest. 



In the golden age of the Tamil people of Southern India, the Tin- 

 nevelly pearl fishery, then established, as Ptolemy states, at Keru, the 

 more modern Coil, paid tribute to the Pandyon kings of Madura ; and 

 at this period, we are told by the author of Periplus, of the Erythraean 

 Sea, none but condemned criminals were employed in the fishery. 

 Marco Polo, in the end of the thirteenth century, mentions the land of 

 Maabar,f where many beautiful and great pearls are found off the coast. 

 The merchants and divers, he says, congregated at Belaler in April and 

 May, and he relates how the divers, called Abrai amain, performed incan- 

 tations to preserve themselves from the attacks of great fish in the depths 

 of the sea. 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 

 complete the perilous voyage to India in early times. Friar Jordanus, 



* Frona the ' Intellectual Observer.' 



t Maabar of Ibn Batuta and Marco Polo is the southern region of the Caro- 

 mandel coast, comprised in the modern districts of Madura and Tinnevelly. 

 Colonel Yule has suggested that the word may be Arabic (Ma'abar, a ferry), in 

 reference to the passage or ferry to Ceylon. 



