miles
after which the banks are lost in deep water. The chief centre of the
pearl trade is Lingah, hence the name given to the shells of this
district. Most of the pearls go to Bombay and are known as Bombay
pearls, many of them having a distinctly yellow tint. The whitest and
finest go to Bagdad and eventually the best go to Europe. India takes
the irregular ones and China gets the seed pearls.
The
principal banks are at Bahrein. This island is the most important one
of a group situated in an indentation of the Arabian coast and is about
seventy miles long and twenty-five broad.
Small
boats carrying from five to fifteen men fish the shallows near the
coast, but larger boats, manned by from twenty to fifty men, put out
for the banks further from shore into deep water. These remain out
during the entire season coming into port once or twice only for
supplies. The owners of the boats are generally poor. They depend upon
the dealers for advances at the beginning of the season for supplies,
and many of them are therefore practically in a state of bondage.
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