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PEARLS FROM ASIA
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in length. The smaller boats working near shore convey the catch to the land for the opening and searching for pearls.
The
Persian Gulf pearls are commonly not so white as those from Ceylon, but
they are found of larger size, and it is believed in Asia that they
retain their luster for a greater length of time. Many of the Persian
Gulf pearls, especially those from sudaifee and zinni shells, have a distinctly yellow color. Tavernier made a curious explanation of this. He stated :
As
for the pearls tending to yellow, the color is due to the fact that the
fishermen sell the oysters in heaps, and the merchants awaiting
sometimes up to 14 or 15 days till the shells open of themselves, in
order to extract the pearls, some of these oysters lose their water
during this time, decay, and become putrid, and the pearls become
yellow by contact. This is so true that in all oysters which have
retained their water, the pearls are always white. They are allowed to
open of themselves, because if they are opened by force, as we open our
oysters in the shell, the pearls may be damaged and broken. The oysters
of the Manar Strait open of themselves, 5 or 6 days sooner than those
of the Gulf of Persia, because the heat is much greater at Manar, which
is at the tenth degree of North latitude, while the island of Bahrein
is at about the twenty-seventh. And consequently among the pearls which
come from Manar there are few yellow ones found.1
Tavernier
was more familiar with the pearls themselves than with the methods of
the fishery. The yellow color is not due to contact with the
putrefactive flesh, and is independent of the manner of opening. In
fact, if putrefaction caused the yellow color, this shade would be far
more prevalent in the Manaar or Ceylon pearls than in those from
Bahrein, for practically all of the Ceylon oysters are permitted to
putrefy, whereas only a portion of those in the Persian Gulf are opened
in this manner. Furthermore, notwithstanding that it is nearer the
equator, the heat at Manaar during the pearling season is not to be
compared with that at Bahrein when the season is at its height, for the
Persian Gulf during July and August is notorious as one of the hottest
places on the globe.
While
the great bulk of the pearls are either white or yellowish, these
fisheries yield a few pink, bluish, gray, and occasionally even black
pearls. These unusual colors are not especially prized. A curious and
remarkably detailed story has gone the rounds in which the qualities of
Persian and Ceylon pearls are compared, to the disparagement of the
latter, and during the last hundred years few accounts have been
published of this fishery without recording it. We notice it first in
Morier's "Journey through Persia in 1808 and 1809,"2 but
iTavernier, "Travels in India," Ball edition, Vol. II, pp. 114, 115. 2 London, 1812, p. 55. 7
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