sometimes
they are left to putrefy in pits or closed vessels, and when these are
opened the decomposing oysters are put into troughs, and the Pearls are
washed with sea-water. On other occasions however, the shells are
opened immediately, and the Pearls forthwith extracted. The oysters,
however, are generally sold unopened, and as their contents are alike
unknown to both buyer and seller the transaction takes more the form
of a lottery than a commercial exchange, — in fact the trade has in it
much of the spirit of gambling : many oysters may be opened without
yielding a single Pearl, whilst on the other hand, one pair of shells
may contain a Pearl worth ^20 or £10, but very seldom of higher value.
The
government has derived a large income from this fishery, and it is
protected by the strictest regulations. Those places to be fished are
marked out with buoys carefully before the boats leave the land, and
are examined from time to time by experienced divers.
Vincent,
in his "Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients," (1807), speaks of
Manaar, which was the island of Epidorus, as the centre of the Pearl
fishery. According to the " Periplus of the Erythrean Sea," the
Pearl-oysters are found only at this
