508 
THE TROPICAL A.GRICULTURIST. 
[Feb. 1, 1904, 
separate their own oysters into three heaps, roughly, 
but as accurately as possible under the circumstances. 
Then the Government cleik in charge of that parti- 
cular pen, entirely at his own discretion, assigns 
one of these heaps to the divers, and this is forth- 
with bagged or basketed and carried off by them 
through the exit on the landward side from the 
enclosure. The actual process of exit is a little 
trying, for within this narrow opening in the wattle 
enclosure a small posse of Government officials with 
occasionally a few police stand on guard to keep 
order and to exercise a sort of rongh search for 
illicitly concealed pearls. It is a rough and noisy 
but very good-humoured crowd ; and in the course 
of this proceeding not a few pearls are in some 
mysterious way discovered and confiscated. If the 
departing crew is too obstreperous they are detained 
for such time aa is necessary to deprive them of 
all their oysters. That this last proceeding is nothing 
more than rough justice is, I think, shown by the 
fact that the divers recognize it as snch, aod seldom 
or never complain once they have lost their oysters. 
But even when a company of divers has successfully 
passed through the kottus and escaped through the 
narrow wicket gate on the landward side of that — 
for an hour or two each day — seething mass of 
humanity and oys'ers, their troubles of the day are 
not over, for they are at once swallowed up in a 
surging crowd of natives eager to buy from them 
their oysters by the dozen or the half-dozen, or 
even by twos and ones. The prices then given for 
each individual oyster or handful of oysters are com- 
paratively enormous, and the oyster bearer has 
often divested himself at highly remunerative rates 
of his whole burden before he emerges at the other 
Bide of the throng. If he has any left, he hurries 
to a native buyer and disposes of the remainder. 
Then he hurries to wash the brine off his tired 
limbs in one or other of the tanks specially reserved 
for the purpose ; and at last follows much-needed 
rest. 
In time every boat has reached the shore and 
every boat's crew has, as above described, passed 
through the kottus. 
COTJNIING THE GOVEBNMENT's SHAEE. 
No sooner has the load of any boat been deposited, 
divided Into lots, and the diver's lot carried off, 
then the Government counters begin to count the 
share left for Government, and, by using an in- 
genious system of tallies, do this so quickly that the 
millions of oysters which generally form the Govern- 
ment share of a day's take are counted with remark 
able accuracy within a couple of hours or so. 
Each counter reports his total to the representative 
of the Government Agent sitting in one corner of 
the kottu enclosure, and by eight or nine o'clock 
almost the exact numbers composing the great heaps 
of oysters on the kottu floor is known and reported. 
The kottus then are closed for the night, and a 
few sentries are left throughout the night to watch 
by the light of the long lines of dimly burning 
coconut oil lamps to see that noaa of the bivalves 
are removed or tampared with, 
A LIVING MOUSE TRAP. 
Here incidentally may be put on record a little 
incident within my own experience. A mouse wan- 
dering through the deserted kottus in the silence 
of the night and, impelled either by hunger or curio- 
sity, pat its head in between the gaping valves of 
an oyster and was caught before it could draw back. 
Oyster and mouse, the head of the latter tightly 
clipped by the former, now stand in a glass jar of 
arrack on my table. Sach an incident appears to be 
not uncommon ; and Sir William Twynam in his 
interesting little museum at Jaffna has a bird im- 
prisoned by an oyster in the same fashion. 
THE AUCTION SALE By'SPHE GOVERNMENT AGENT. 
At about 9 p.m. each night the Government Agent 
repairs to the court-house, where are collected all who 
wish to buy oysters wholesale. The Governmen 
Agent first announces how many of the bivalves are 
lying in the kottus and puts these up for sale by the 
thousand. Any number of thousands, from one to 
perhaps fifty thousand or more, are taken by indivi- 
dual purchasers or by syndicates. The prices in a 
single night vary curiously and inexplicably ; a high 
price, say, Rs, 35 per 1,000, may be given at the begin- 
ning of the evening, later not more than t^s. 22 can be 
extracted, and yet again later higher prices prevail. 
There is keen and zealous c mpetition, the larger 
buyers competing against the smaller, or all combining 
in a ring against tlie Government auctioneer. The 
day's catch is, however, generally sold within the 
same night, but if not the balance is disposed of pri- 
vately the next morning. 
Quite early the next morning each purchaser comes 
to the Government Agent for an order for the number 
of oysters knocked down to him the previous night, 
and at once sets to work to remove these to his own 
private shed ; and before noon the Government 
kottu is cleared and ready for a fresh supply in the 
evening, 
THE SECOND FLEET'S START AT MIDNIGHT. 
Meanwhile, at about the previous midnight or soon 
after, the wind then at that season of the yeir begin- 
ning to blow from the land out to sea, another fleet 
of boats starts out for the paars, reaches its desti- 
nation by daybreak, anchors, and waits for the sea 
to become smooth and the light suf&cient. While 
waiting, a narrow plank or bamboo platform is let 
down and fastened orev each side of the ship ; and on 
these platforms, when the day has advanced far 
enough, the divers rest squatting between their dives. 
And then the history already told of the previous day's 
take is repeated, 
WASHING THE PEARLS. 
The washing of the pearls froia the oysters is a most 
tedious, primitive, and somewhat disgusting process. 
The oysters are simply left to rot, the process being 
much assisted by the vast clouds of a black •' house- 
fly," which after the first day or two permeates 
the whole camp. After a week's rotting the seething 
and disgusting residue is sorted by hand, and the 
pearls, or such of them as are of suflScient size, picked 
out. The residue is then dried in the sun and becomes 
what is known aa " sarakoo. " This sarakoo is at 
leisure sorted and winnowed and examined over and 
over again till the smallest-sized pearls have been 
extracted. 
Many of those who have come to the camp have 
come not to buy oysters, nor to wash them, bat only 
to buy pearls. Of these, some are small people, but 
most are wealthy capitalists from the great towns of 
India and from Colombo. They live in two special 
streets, where all day long they sit on the ground 
in their open-fronted shops, toying with pearls spread 
on the dark-coloured cloth which lies for that purpose 
on the ground in front of them. On the cloth, too- 
is a delicately-formed copper scoop, shell shaped, for 
lifting the pearls, neat little scales with a quaint 
shaped case to hold them and with weights, the larger 
of agate, the smaller of bright scarlet seeds, also a 
set of basket-shaped sieves for grading the pearls. 
When no one is present to sell they minutely weigh 
again and again the larger of the pearls, sort them 
according to size, colour, texture and roundness, 
tie up the better specimens carefully in little screws 
of linen, put them away in the great strong box, 
which forms almost the only furniture of the shop, 
take them out again, and discuss each one over 
again with their pstrtaers and friends. Then some 
washer comes along with pearls to sell, and the 
whole joy of chaferiug begins, and lasts till one is 
tired of watching. 
THE SCENE IN PEARL TOWN. 
Meanwhile along the street a busy crowd is always 
passing in front of the shops. Many carry great 
brazen vessels of water from the tank, others drive 
