o< MONTHLY. \>o 
XXIII. 
COLOMBO, JANUAEY 1st, 1904. 
No, 7. 
A SKETCH OP THE CEYLON PEARL 
FISHERY OP 1903. 
(By EvERARD HI Thuen, c.b., c.m.g., Lieut,- 
GovERNOR OF Ceylon.) 
{In Spolia Zeylanica.) 
Part I, 
THE HARVEST OP THE SEA, 
T is difficult to imagine a more 
picturesque incident tha.n the 
"harvest of the sea," vshen 
pearls are the crop gathered in. 
The scene is in the shallow 
tropical sea which is shut in 
by Ceylon on the east, the 
coast of Southern India on the 
west, and on the north by "Adam's Bridge," a reef 
partly just awash and partly cropping np in the form 
of a chain of inlands which connects Ceylon with India 
la the Gulf of Mannar thus formed it was found 
at least some 300j years before Christ that there is 
an abundant growth of pearl-prodncing mnsseh— 
locally called oysters. The banks or " paars " on 
which these bivalves grow lie from 5 to 10 fathoms 
below the surface of the water. Thither for 2,000 
years, when the rumour goes abroad that the harvest 
is ripe, divers have come together from the Red 
Sea and the Persian Gulf and the coasts of India, 
as well as from Ceylon itself, to gather in the Orient 
pearls which have been distributed to adorn stately 
men and beautiful women in many a function through- 
out the civilized as well as the barbaric world. 
The coast lands of Ceylon nearest to the oyster 
paara is for the most part very sparsely inhabited, and, 
like tho opposite coasts of Southern India, consists 
chiefly of rolling sand plains, with here and there 
a little coarse grass or low sparse vegetation or 
even occasional scrubby jungle. For some mysterious 
and hitherto unexplained reason this harvest of 
the sea has always been an uncertain one, apt 
suddenly, and at any stage in its growth, to dis- 
appear; and often it is many years before it re-appears 
At most times of the year, and sometimes for years 
together when .the oyster crop is known to have 
failed, the adjacent shore is a desert in which a 
human being is rarely to be seen. But nowadays, 
and throughout the past century, as each November 
comes round, an official from Colombo visits the 
paars, takes np a certain number of oysters from 
each, washes out the peai-ls, submits these and the 
facts connected with them to experts, and the Caylon 
Government thus decides whether or not there shall 
be a fishery in the following March and April. 
THE EXTENSIVE NECRSSAEY PREPARATIONS. 
If the decision is in the affirmative preparations 
have to begin at once. The fact that there is to be 
a fishery is made known throughout India and the 
Eastern world, and even in Europe. This is done 
partly by the prosaic system of newspaper advertise- 
ment, partly by that far more wonderful passing 
of the word from man to man which, as is now 
well known, can carry news across a continent with 
amazing speed. On land which is at the moment a 
desert, an elaborate set of temporary Government 
buildings have to be erected for receiving and dealing 
with many millions of oysters and their valuable 
if minute contents. Court-houses, prisons, barracks, 
revenue offices, markets, residences for the officials, 
streets of houses and shops for perhaps some thirty 
thousand inhabitants, and a water supply for drinking 
and bathing for these same people have to be ar- 
ranged for. Lastly, but, in view of the dreadfnl 
possibility of the outbreak of plague and cholera, not 
least, there are elaborate hospitals to be provided. 
After an interval of eleven years it was announced 
at the end of 1902 that there would be a fishery in the 
following spring. The difficulty of making the above- 
mentioned preparations in due time was enormously 
increased by the fact that so long an interval had 
elapsed since the last fishery, and that so few 
persons were conversant with what had to be done, 
ilr. levers, the Government Agent of the Northern. 
Province, and his immediate assistants Messrs 
Horsburgh and Denham were, however, equal to the 
occasion ; and when the time appointed for the 
commencement of tlie fishery came, a complete tem- 
porary town had sprung np as well and minutely 
ordered aa are most permanent towns. 
