5. Payments to be made in ready money in rupees or in Government of India notes. Checks on the Bank of Madras or Bank Agencies will be received on letters of credit being produced to warrant the drawing of such checks.
6. All particulars can be obtained on application to the Superintendent of Pearl Fisheries, Tuticorin.
Tinnevelly Collector's Office, Sd/—J. P. Bedford,
16th November 1899.
Collector.
On
the long sweep of desolate shore at a place convenient to the reefs, a
temporary camp is erected, just as is done on the Ceylon coast.
However, this camp is not nearly so large, only about one fourth or one
fifth the size of that on the eastern side of the gulf. It resembles
the larger one in the quarters for divers and merchants, the bazaars,
the bungalows for the officials, the hospital, the sale and washing
in-closures, etc.; in addition to these is the temporary Roman Catholic
chapel.
The
divers are mainly of the Parawa caste from Tuticorin, Pinna-coil,
Pamban, etc. on the Madras coast. Although influenced by many Hindu
superstitions, they are nominally Roman Catholics, as evidenced by the
scapulars suspended from the neck, their ancestors having been
converted and baptized through the zealous work of that prince of
missionaries, St. Francis Xavier, in the sixteenth century. Even yet a
chapel at Pinnacoil is held in special reverence by these people as a
place where the saintly father preached. Professor Hornell writes that
the present hereditary head of this caste is Don Gabriel de Croos
Lazarus Motha Vaz, known officially as the Jati Talaiva More, or Jati
Talaivan. He resides at Tuticorin, and is largely the intermediary
between the government and the Parawa fishermen.
In
the details of its prosecution, the Madras fishery differs in no
important particular from that of Ceylon. The boats are manned and
operated in precisely the same way ; they fish in the morning only,
taking advantage of the prevailing favorable winds ; the divers carry
the oysters into the government inclosure, and divide them into three
equal lots, of which they receive one; the share of the government is
auctioned daily, the divers disposing of theirs as they choose; and
the oysters are rotted and washed in the same manner as in Ceylon.
In
addition to the fishery for pearl-oysters at Tuticorin, two other
species of pearl-producing mollusks are collected in the Madras
presidency; one of these is a species of mussel (Mytilus smaragdinus, according
to Dr. Edgar Thurston of the Madras Museum), which is collected from
the estuary of the Sonnapore River near Berhampore ;
