THE TECHNOLOGIST. [Feb. 1, 1865. 



296 THE TINNEVELLY PEARL-BANKS. 



a quaint old missionary bishop, who was in India ahout 1330, says that 

 8,000 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 Ramnad, which, 

 sends off a reef of rocks towards Ceylon, known as Adam's Bridge. Old 

 Ludovico di Varthema mentions having seen the pearls fished for in 

 the sea near the city of Chayal, in about 1500 A.D., and Barbosa, who 

 travelled about the same time, says that the people of Chayal are expert 

 jewellers who trade in pearls. This place is, as Dr. Vincent has clearly 

 shown, the Keru of Ptolemy, the Kolkhi of the author of the Periplus, 

 the Koil or Chayl of the travellers of the Middle Ages, the Rama- 

 na-Koil (temple of Kama) of the natives, the same as the sacred 

 promontory of Ramnad and isle of Rameswaram, the head-quarters of 

 the Indian pearl fishery from time immemorial. 



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

 planted the ancient Coil for the last two centuries ; and since the middle 

 of the seventeenth century, the powers which have successively pre- 

 sided 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 exquisitely 

 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, 

 described Tuticorin when the Dutch were all-powerful at that port, as 

 well as in Ceylon. He says that a Dutch colony at Tuticorin superin- 

 tended a pearl fishery a little to the northward of the port, which 

 brought the Dutch company 20,000Z. yearly tribute. 



The Dutch appear to have fished too recklessly and too often ; and, 

 when the English succeeded them at Tuticorin, the banks were very 

 far from yielding 20,000Z. a year. Our predecessors had well-nigh 

 killed the goose with the golden egg ; and for many years we followed 

 in the same track. It is the old story : a valuable product is dis- 



