15 



The financial account of this fishery which has fortunately survived the vicissi- 

 tudes of time is dated 24th May 1708 and is as follows : — 



■•' Tuticorin, 24th May 1708. 



In this fishery the whole number of stones employed was ... 4,321^ 



P'ds. 

 Namely, 2,380 Xtian at 7 pardaws each of 



10 fananis ... 16,660 



l,5olg Moorish at 12 pardaws each of 10 fanams ... 18,618 



390 Heathen at 9-| pardaws each of 10 fanams ... 3,705 



Pards. 

 educt 398 free stones at above value . 



38,983 

 3,591 



398 



Pards. . 



35,392 



Sts. 3,923J 



About . 



.. fl.106,176 

 = £9,000 





From this statement we learn that the total of stones employed reached the 

 astonishingly large number of 4,321|, considerably more than the number of divers 

 who attended, the Ceylon Fishery of 1903, *a fishery which gave the prodigious 

 total of 41,169,637 fished oysters and a Government gross revenue of Es. 8,30,000. 



Are we to infer that this Tuticorin Fishery of 1708 although yielding but £9,000 

 (Rs. 1,35,000 at the present exchange') to the Government was not so productive of 

 ovsters as the Ceylon one instanced ? In the absence of other particulars we have no 

 means of judging with certainty but as the average price per stone is some 9 pardaos, 

 each equal to about four guineas, and as this sum r epresents the license to fish accorded 

 to a diver for the whole period of the fishery we may infer with some degree of 

 probability from the large number of men engaged that the total catch may have been 

 equally large. Under the conditions that rule at the present day, Government obtains 

 a greater profit upon the fisheries, receiving two-thirds of the entire catch ; hence the 

 receipts from the sale of the right to fish probably made the fishery much more profit- 

 able to the subject in the early days of Dutch rule and acknowledged receipts of 

 fll06,176 (Es. 1,35.000) would represent a fishery on a scale of magnitude comparing 

 most favourably with the fisheries held during the last half of the lyth century. 



The proportions of divers supplied from the three religions then prevalent is also 

 shown by this account, namely — 



2,380 Christians (Parawas). 

 1,501 Moormen. 

 390 " Heathen ", i.e., Hindus. 



These 390 Hindu divers did not represent a remnant of Parawas remaining 

 unconverted to Eoman Catholocism, but belonged to the Kadeiyar caste of lime 

 gatherers and burners of Eameswarem and the neighbourhood from which caste the 

 ranks of the divers are in part recruited at the present day.f 



So far as I can ascertain no divers practising the Hindu religion have attended 

 any pearl fisheries during the last half century, while the relative proportionate 

 strength of Christians and Muhammadans has gradually tended to the preponderance 

 of the latter, so that at rec%nt fisheries the Muhammadans outnumber the Christians, 

 an increase due partly to larger families reared by the latter and to the more regular 

 and abstemious lives they lead. 



In my report on the Ceylon fishery of 1904 I noted the marked superiority of 

 Muhammadan over Christian divers in the number of seconds they remain under water 

 and in the greater number of oysters collected per dive — a superiority that makes the 

 work of the former more productive and valuable. This appears to have been recog- 

 nised in a very practical manner in the old fisheries we are now considering, as we see 



» The total of diver3 who attended the Ceylon Pearl Fishery of 1903, was 3,922. 



t Many of this eiste are now converted to Eoman Catholicism, and it is from this division of the caste that ths 

 present anpply of Kadeiyar diverB is drawn. 



