86 
Uie Pearl Fishery. 
CHAPTER III. 
Phe Pearl Fishery— Customs of the various Indian Nations who 
frequent it. 
J. HERE is perhaps no spectacle, which the island of Ceylon 
affords, more striking to a European than the bay of Condatchy 
during the season of the pearl fishery. This desert and barren 
spot is at that time convei’ted into a scene which exceeds, in 
novelty and variety, almost any thing I ever witnessed. Se- 
veral thousands of people of different colours, countries, casts, 
and occupations, continually passing and re-passing in a busy 
crowd ; the vast numbers of small tents and huts erected on the 
shore m ith the bazar or market-place before each ; the multi- 
tude of boats returning in the afternoon from the pearl banks, 
some of them laden with riches ; the anxious expecting coun- 
tenances of the boat-owners, while the boats are approaching 
the shore, and the eagerness and avidity with which they run 
to them when arrived, in hopes of a rich cargo ; the vast 
numbers of jewellers, brokers, merchants, of all colours and 
ail descriptions, both natives and foreigners, who are occupied ' 
in some way or other Avith the pearls, some separating and as- 
sorting them, others weighing and ascertaining their number and 
value, while others are hawking them about, or drilling and 
borino’ them for future use : all these circumstances tend to im- 
press the mind with the value and importance of that object 
which can of itself create this scene. 
The bay of Condatchy is the most central rendezvous for 
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