RESIDENCE OF THE MISSION AT BUSIIIRE. 
53 
oysters: but the island of Kharrack now shares the reputation. The 
fishery extends along the whole of the Arabian coast, and to a large 
proportion of the Persian side of the gulph. Verdislan, Nabon , and 
Busheab, on that side, are more particularly mentioned ; but indeed it 
is a general rule, that wherever in the gulph there is a shoal, there is also 
the pearl oyster. 
The fishery, though still in itself as prolific as ever, is not perhaps 
carried on with all the activity of former years; since it declined in 
consequence by the transfer of the English market to the banks of the 
coast of Ceylon. But the Persian pearl is never without a demand; 
though little of the produce of the fishery comes direct into Persia. 
The trade has now almost entirely centred at Muscat. From Muscat 
the greater part of the pearls are exported to Surat; and, as the agents 
of the Indian merchants are constantly on the spot, and as the fishers 
prefer the certain sale of their merchandize there to a higher but less 
regular price in any other market, the pearls may often be bought at a 
less price in India, than to an individual they would have been sold in 
Arabia. There are two kinds ; the yellow pearl, which is sent to the 
Mahratta market; and the white pearl, which is circulated through 
Bussorah and Bagdad into Asia Minor, and thence into the heart of 
Europe; though, indeed, a large proportion of the whole is arrested in 
its progress at Constantinople to deck the Sultanas of the Seraglio. The 
pearl of Ceylon peels off; that of the Gulph is as firm as the rock upon 
which it grows; and, though it loses in colour and water 1 per cent an¬ 
nually for fifty years, yet it still loses less than that of Ceylon. It ceases 
after fifty years to lose any thing. 
About twenty years ago the fishery was farmed out by the different 
chiefs along the coast: thus the Sheiks of Bahrein and of El 
Katifi having assumed a certain portion of the Pearl Bank, obliged 
every speculator to pay them a certain sum for the right of fishing. At 
present, however, the trade which still employs a considerable number of 
boats is carried on entirely by individuals. There are two modes of spe¬ 
culation : the first, by which the ad venturer charters a boat by the month 
