The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-04-15
FISHING AS
 DONE IN CEYLON How a Strange Industry is Car
 ried On TOWN OF PEARL SEEKERS Riffraff of the Red Sea and the Persian GuIf-The Methods Today the Same as In solomons
 Time.
TOWN OF PEARL SEEKERS

All night the little steamship Bhadra has been slowly making her way. up the Ceylon coast from Colombo to the Gulf of Manar. As the dawn comes up sud denly we find ourselves slipping through the pearl fishery fleet with the divers waiting for the suns warmer rays before beginning operations Half an hour later we have made the sandy beach at March- ehikadde, and everything around tells us plainly that we are in Pearl Town"
 There is a heavy nauseating odor hang ing in the air. writes a Colombo cores pendent of the London Express, rolling along in heavy surges and making it's i presence felt like something tangible; 1t is a terrible smell, impossible to de- scribe, and to be smelled nowhere else in the world-the Marlchchikadde odor, the essence Of millions of rotting oysters. for that Is the way the dazzling Orient pearl. the gem of the east is obtained
 We walk up from the beach to the Euro pean quarters of Pearl Town" and before ns, where a month ago was nothing but the waste of burning silver sand and the haunts of the Jackab the kite and the scorpion, now stretches a busy town of -40OOO inhabitants, a mushroom city to live through strenuous six weeks of toll and money getting, of hard labor and high gambling, and then to vanish and leave it's debris to the packals.
 Scum of the East.
 It is peopled by the scum of the east, the wastrels of the Orient. the riffraff of the Red sea littoral and the Persian gulf-35OOO of the ugliest. truest sons of Mohammed, who would as readily knife a neighbor as whittle open an a pearl i oyster And this heterogeneous crowd, collected with the single aim of getting great wealth in rush. is ruled with a ready but perfect justice by mere hand | ful of Englishmen-six civilians and a small posse of native police. And these six men carry out the city's whole ad- mnlstration.
 There are the police court, the hospital and the cemetery. The sanitary arrange ments of the town must be perfect, for | the crowd halls from the cholera homes and the plague spots of Asia, and outbreak would be disaster. The bank is there, the post and telegraphic office, the auctioneers hammer and the "outside market"-everything essential for the greatest speculations. Everybody at Pearl Town" is a gambler, yet serious crime is scarce, for they are too hard worked to fight.
 The pearl divers life is a strenuous one. At a. m. the camp gun fires, and before dawn the Arabs, in their long c1oaks and headdresses of coled camel hair, are down on the beach. Amid much shouting the fishing fleet of boats of all i sizes and shapes known from Jeddah to Koweit and Bahrein to Karkal puts off for the pearl banks.
 Interesting Scene Presented.
 The sun rising over the land gives a golden glow to the bel1ying sails, which, | lying just off the beach, are in rich con trast to the turquoise sea. In q couple of hours the boats are over the bank appointed to be fished, which is marked out by buoyed flags. Each craft is crowd- ed with men, and we step aboard one from the superintendent launch an in- teresting scene is before us.
 The enormous lateen sail of the boat Is lowered and slowed along the boom. over which the divers var-shaped and many colored garments hang in the sun to i warm the center of the deck holds large i baskets and sacks for the oysters. while l temporary bulwarks enable the man dulxs" to attend to the divers proper, and ! scattered over the sea around us are 300 such craft.
 Here is finely built son of the Phophet | just starting. His costume is of the
  nose-clp to keep the water out and an open net around his neck for the oys- | ters. He drops over the side, plants his feet on his sink-stone. grasps it's rope in his hands takes a mighty breath of air and shoots down feet foremost to the bottom. Watch him there, through thir- ty feet of absolutely clear blue water. He leaves his stone, but maintains his hand line in his hand. while his man 1 duk'' on deck holds the other end; half crawling, half swimming. like dg black frog. he gropes over the sea bot tom gathering in the oysters as he moves.
 Stays Below a Long Time.
 Will never come up? It seems to us, watching, like an age Suddenly the line quivers, the "manduk" hauls in. and q dripping head gasping frantically for air, shoots up from the depths Eighty five seconds since he went down those thirty feet, working hard the whole time for his fat haul of oysters. slight pause for air, and down he goes again. Thus with short periods of rest the divers work all the morning until the monday gun stops all fishing for the day.
 Then it is up anchor. and wild race for home follows. The wind is strong and a favorable one. and these huge sails bend the ralxing masts as the crews make every effort to cover the distance and beach their boats nrSt
 The return of the fleet is the signal for much excitement ashore, from where the | advancing boats look like cloud of great gray sea doves rushing over the l waves to the beach. The boats land and the divers hurry off to the government yards with their takes. Each diver di- vides his oysters in three equal portions, any two of which the government ser wants take as the government property, the third being the divers share.
 The Ceylon pearl fishery is older than the hills for in Solomon's time it was flourishing, and to day the methods of obtaining the pearls are precisely the same Canoes made of hollowed out trunks, with no seams, are placed in light sheds and filled with thousands of oysters, which are left to rot. A short time in this tropic heat suffices, and the millions of hue bottlefy maggots, yer l min bred of putrefacted slime complete the work, till nothing is left but dry oys- | ter shells, sand and pearls. These are carefully washed, the shells picked over and the waste containing the gems Is carefully winnowed by girls.