While
the Portuguese were masters of Ormuz and Mascati, every vessel which
went to fish was obliged to take a passport from them at a dear rate ;
and they maintained always five or six small galleys in the gulph, to
sink those barks which took no passports ; but at present they have no
further power upon those coasts, and each fisher forfeits to ihe king
of Persia, not above one third of what they gave to the Portugals.
"The
second fishing is over against Bahren, upon the coast of Arabia Felix,
near to the city of Catif, which belongeth to an Arabian prince who
commandeth that province. The most part of the Pearls which are fished
in these two places, are carried into India, because that the Indians
are not so hard, but give a better price for them than we ; they are
therefore carried thither, the unequal as well as the round, the yellow
as well as the white, every one according to its rate : some of them
also are sold at Balfora, and those which are transported into Persia
and Moscovy, are sold at Bandarcongue, two days' journey from Ormuz.
They fish twice in a year, in the months of March and April, and in the
months of August and September ; the depth where they fish is from four
to twelve fathoms, and the deeper the oyster is found the Pearls are
the whiter, because the water
