chap, xxi THE JEWEL TRADE IN GOA 95
twelve
hours, and then returns to land. Those who are in want of money sell
what they have taken, at once, but those who have what they require to
live on, keep the oysters until the whole fishing is finished. The
oysters' are left unopened, and as they decay open of themselves. There
are some of these shells which are four times as large as those of our
Rouen oysters, but as the flesh of this kind of oyster, of which we
speak, is poor and of bad flavour, it is not eaten but thrown away.
To
conclude the discourse on pearls, it should be remarked that throughout
Europe they are sold by carat weight, which is equal to 4 grains, the
same as the diamond weight, but in Asia the weight is different. In
Persia the pearls are weighed by the 'abbas, and an 'abbas is an eighth
less than our carat. In India, and in all the territories of the Great
Mogul and the Kings of Golkonda and Bijapur, they are weighed by ratis,
and the rati is also an eighth less than the carat.1
Goa
was formerly the place where there was the largest trade in all Asia in
diamonds, rubies, sapphires, topazes, and other stones.2 All
the miners and merchants went there to sell the best which they had
obtained at the mines, because they had there full liberty to sell,
whereas, in their own country, if they showed anything to the Kings or
Princes, they were compelled to sell at whatever price was fixed. There
was also at Goa a large trade in pearls, both of those which came from
the island of Bahrein in the Persian Gulf, and those fished for in the
straits of Manar on the coast of the island of Ceylon, as also of those
which were brought from America. It should be known then, that in Goa
and in all the other places which the Portuguese hold in India, they
have a particular weight for pearls which is not used in the other
places where there is a trade in pearls, neither in Europe, Asia, nor
America. I do not include Africa, because this trade is unknown there,
and because in that part of the
1 Kelly in the Universal Cambist, i,
p. 278, gives the value of the Persian 'abbas as 3-66 diamond grains =
2-25 (2-9 ?) troy grains. But it has been shown that the pearl rati of
our author was equal to 2-77 troy grains. (See vol. i, Appendix, p.
333.)
1 Cf. Linsehoten, i. 225, and on the great trade of Goa, Pyrard de Laval, u. 212 f.
