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" The fishery lasts from the 11th of March to the 20th of April,* but the fair 

 " itself continues for fifty days, because for the last nine days the enclosures are 

 " cleansed, as so many flies are bred by the corrupt matter that the adjacent places and 

 " the whole country might be annoyed by them, if care were not taken to sweep into 

 " the sea the impurities collected during the fishery. 



" On the last day of April, the merchants of the several partnerships assemble 

 " together and share the pearls belonging to their respective boats. They separate 

 " them into nine classes, and set on each class a price according as the demand has 

 " been greater or less for pearls during the year ; when these prices have been set on 

 " them, they make the allotments and shares. Then the ill-formed pearls are sold at a 

 " sufficiently moderate price ; the small seed-pearls are left on the sea-side and the 

 " country people come in the spring and sift the sand for them and sell them for a 

 ' : trifle. 



" Hence the pearls and seed are sent to all parts of the world. This is all I know 

 " of this fishery. But I must not forget to add that pieces of amber of a considerable 

 " size are also found on this coast. Great branches of coral also drift ashore when the 

 " sea is high ; the black kind is better and more esteemed than the red." 



In no Portuguese work have I found any indication of the frequency of the recur- 

 rence of fisheries under the Portuguese or of the approximate values and localities of 

 each, a lack of knowledge greatly to be regretted as it becomes impossible to say with 

 certainty whether or not there has been deterioration, progressive or intermittent, in 

 the oyster-producing qualities of the beds. The only bint I have come across is a 

 chance remark in Eibeyro's " History ", to the effect that the inhabitants of Mannar 

 had in his time (circa 1658) become impoverished by the decadence of the pearl fishery 

 on the Ceylon coast and its transference to the Tuticorin side, his words being " at 

 present the oysters have migrated and are to be found on the coast of Tuticorin." f 



Even prior to the Portuguese we find the uncertainty of the pearl fisheries a 

 matter of notoriety for Albyrouni who served under Mahmoud of Ghazni and wrote in 

 the eleventh century, says that the pearl fishery which formerly existed in the Gulf 

 of Serendib, had become exhausted in his time simultaneously with the appearance of 

 a fishery at Sofala, in the country of the Zends, where pearls were unknown before, 

 and remarks that hence arose the conjecture that the pearl oyster of Serendib had 

 migrated to Sofala J, i.e., to the Persian Gulf. 



Pew other facts of importance are to be gleaned from Portuguese writers. "We 

 see however that in fulfilment of the treaty made with the new-comers the Parawas 

 became zealous Eoman Catholics. Thus they won the confidence of their masters and 

 under the protection of the priesthood enjoyed a comparative tranquillity and immunity 

 from extortionate tyranny seldom met with by Indians living within the Portuguese 

 influence. 



St. Francis Xavier did great work among the the Parawas and it was on the 

 fishery coast at or about Pinnacoil that he commenced his missionary labours in 1542, 

 thereafter visiting Tuticorin and sending priests to Mannar at the earnest solicitation 

 of the inhabitants. § 



That the fisheries were then flourishing is betokened by the fine churches and 

 great monasteries that rose at the three centres named from the offerings and profits 

 of the divers and merchants during the second half of the sixteenth century. 



The Portuguese appear to have kept well in hand the petty Eajas whose territo- 

 ries abutted on the fishery coast and to have been able to afford efficient protection to 

 the Parawas. They were fortunate in arriving in India at a time when the native 

 states were in the crucible of change, when internecine warfare left the chiefs neither 

 time nor power to cope efficiently with a more highly organized foe from oversea. Old 



• Old style ? 



t See also Baldaeus' " Description of Malabar and Coromandel," English edition, London 1703, where in volume 3, 

 page 792, referring to the condition of affairs in 1658, he Btates that "this island (Mannar) was formerly celebrated for 

 the pearl fishery as well as the city of Tutecoryn ; bit no pearls having been taken there for these ten years last paBt, the 

 inhabitants are reduced to great poverty ; whereas the sumptuous edifices, churches and monasteries, with their orna- 

 ments, are sufficient demonstrations of its former grandeur." 



J Reinaud's " Fragmens Arabes, " page 125, quoted by Tennent in " The Natural History of Ceylon, ' ' page 376. 



| " The History of Ceylon " by Philalethes, London 1817, page 224. 



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