is unknown, but there is good reason for supposing that it is considerable.
The
fisheries are carried on during the greater part of every year,
presenting a strong contrast to the Ceylon fishery, which is prosecuted
usually less than forty days, and in only about one year in three on an
average. This is especially remarkable when it is considered that no
particular care is taken of the Persian reefs and, except for certain
tribal restrictions, the fishermen may work whenever and wherever they
choose. Owing to the extended area over which the fishing is prosecuted
and the existence of undisturbed breeding-oysters in the deeper waters,
the reefs are not readily exhausted, notwithstanding the tens of
millions of mollusks annually removed therefrom.
The
fisheries are at their height from June to September, when nearly every
person on the coast is interested in some capacity, if not in fishing,
at least in furnishing supplies, cleaning shells, buying pearls, etc.
In April and May the water on the deep banks is so cold that the
fishermen confine their efforts to the more shallow areas. During the
winter months, the cold weather and the northwesterly gales interfere
with the work, except such as is prosecuted in the smaller bays and
inlets.
The pearling operations are financed mostly by Indian bunnias, or
traders, principally from Bombay, who furnish capital for equipment,
supplies of food, etc., and who purchase the pearls in gross lots.
These men bear very hard on the fishermen, furnishing the supplies and
buying the pearls almost at their own prices ; and the poor divers who
explore the depths and secure the pearls derive from their exertions
little more than the crudest necessaries of life, and are usually in
debt to the traders.
The
actual fishing operations are carried on mainly by the maritime tribes
of Hasa and Oman, including those on the Pirate Coast. The inhabitants
of the Bahrein Islands and the adjacent shores have been devoted to
pearling from time immemorial; but the Wahabis of the Pirate Coast —the
Ichthyophagi of Ptolemy's time—have more recently, under the
persuasive influence of British gunboats and magazine-rifles,
substituted pearling for their two-century inherited life of fanatical
piracy. Referring to these people in his quaint sketches of Persia
eighty years ago, Sir John Malcolm wrote : "Their occupation is
piracy, and their delight murder, and to make it worse they give you
the most pious reasons for every villainy they commit. They abide by
the letter of the sacred volume, rejecting all commentaries and
traditions. If you are their captive and offer all to save your life,
they say, "No! It is written in the Koran that it is not lawful to
plunder the living; but we are not prohibited from stripping the dead.'
So
