from
twenty to one thousand holes. The sieves have twenty, thirty, fifty,
eighty, one hundred, two hundred, four hundred, six hundred, eight
hundred and one thousand holes respectively. The pearls are then sorted
for color and quality, weighed and valued. As with all things, really
fine pieces are rare, the great mass being ordinary or poor. Herein
lies the attraction and excitement of the business for some will find
great gems. One may imagine the keen interest of the swarthy buyer who
has parted with his hoards, hoping to find a "pearl of great price"
when he washes the lustrous spheres from the putrid mass of decaying
fish: the eager search; the joy when his eye lights upon a big, white,
shining sphere rising up among the heap of little ones; the growing
exultation as he picks it out and with feverish interest rolls it about
between his fingers to find it without flaw or blemish, or the keen
disapÂpointment should his inspection show, as it most frequently does,
that it is full of imperÂfections.
Hovering about are the buyers for the great Hindu merchants, agents of far-off princes and
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