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CHAPTER XII. The Persian Gulf and Red Sea Fisheries.
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" Heaps of Pearl, Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, All scattered in the bottom of the sea."
—Richard III. Act I., Scene IV.
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EARLS have been found from time immemorial in the waters that wash
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the shores of " Araby the blest." The Persian Gulf, which separates
Arabia from Persia, has been the scene of Pearling operations certainly
for more than two thousand years, and probably for a much longer
period. Isidorus of Charax, a Greek historian, who is said to have
lived three centuries before the Christian era, tells us in his
description of Parthia, that "in the Persian sea is a certain island
where abundance of the Pearl-oyster is to be found. Wherefore rafts of
reeds are stationed all around the island, from off which the divers,
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