34 



The head diver, M. Kirutuneina, who claims to be 70 years old and to hare dived 

 from the age of nine, had much to say, but few facts of consequence were elicited ; he 

 ami the other elders had never known or heard of mature pearl oysters in quantity on 

 any of the Pars between Kilakarai and Painban. The nearest locality they knew of 

 was the vicinity of r^allatanni-tivu, and even there they had never seen a bed of 

 living oysters, the evidence as regards this locality resting entirely upon the abundance 

 of old oyster shells that litter the sand hills of that island. 



In Kilakarai, signs of prosperity were visible everywhere; boat-owners were 

 arranging for the building of new craft, their agents gone to Cochin for timber ; 

 diver-fishermen were investing in new nets and goldsmiths were busy with orders for 

 jewellery for the womenfolk. The talk everywhere was of money, of profits past and 

 prospective, individual and collective, and of their determination to send more boats 

 and divers to the next year's Ceylon fishery which they were already exploiting in 

 imagination ! Incidentally the head diver informed us that as the result of careful 

 calculation, the best informed people of the place estimated that this one town had 

 brought away from the Ceylon fishery a sum of fully ten lacs of rupees- — the earnings 

 of the divers, muuduks, and boatmen, and the profits of the pearl merchants and 

 boutique keepers —a sum equal to the gross proceeds received by the Ceylon Government 

 from their share of the fishery. 



This year the high profits made at the Ceylon fishery were doubly welcome as 

 being unexpected, news having been universally circulated at the end of last year (1903) 

 that, as the result of the November inspection of the banks had proved disappointing, 

 no fishery would take place. 



The Kilakarai men are the best and most reliable of the local divers who attend 

 the pearl fisheries of the Gulf of Mannar. Their abstemious lives consequent upon 

 fairly faithful observance of the Prophet's laws, predispose to health and regularity of 

 working and while more industrious than the Roman Catholic Parawa divers they also 

 make better use of their earnings than do the latter, who, I am assured on all sides — 

 even by their own people — dissipate their fishery gains within a month or six weeks of 

 their return home. Indeed I was told subsequently in Tuticorin, that the great 

 majority of the Parawas will do little or no work till they have got rid of their 

 earnings in drink and in entertainments and are penniless once again. 



A small settlement of Parawas, dominated as usual by a whitewashed Roman 

 Catholic Church, is sot within circumscribed limits on the seaward margin of the town 

 of Kilakarai. Few physical differences that cannot be accounted for by the great 

 divergence between their modes of life can be noted between them and their Lubbai 

 neighbours and I incline to the belief that in the Kilakarai Muhammadans we have 

 the descendants of Tamil fisher converts to Islam, just as the Parawas have become 

 Roman Catholics. Indeed 1 cannot help thinking that the Parawas and Kilakarai 

 Lubbais are identical in origin, but in the absence of anthropometric measurements 

 the point cannot be settled definitely. 



Leaving Kilakarai the next morning we proceeded direct to Tuticorin, landing 

 there on the afternoon of April 28th. 



The ensuing three days were spent in completing the necessary preparations for 

 work at sea, getting coal and water aboard the steamer, and, on my part, in interview- 

 ing every resident in any way likely to have shrewd opinions based upon local 

 intimacy with the pearl bank region and in comparing and abstracting the information 

 oontained in the fishery and inspection records. Unfortunately the latter are all of 

 comparatively recent date, none going back to the period of the Dutch occupation — a 

 lacuna which I was subsequently able to fill in great part by -the collation and collec- 

 tion of references which occur incidentally in various and diverse publications. 



The Government records give the names of over 60 pars which are reckoned as 

 potential oyster banks. Reference to charts A and B in the appendix, shows that 

 the majority are massed offshore between Tuticorin and Trichendur in from 6 to 10 

 fathoms of water. This region includes practically all the banks that have yielded 

 fisheries during the present century and accordingly it was decided to make our first 

 eruise over the area thus indicated. 



