Los Angeles herald., 1909-07-22

NOLOMBO, Ceylon.--From ophir the
navy of Hiram, king of Tyre,
~ brought to King solomon gold
and silver, ivory and apes, and pea
cocks, almug trees and precious
stones" Many archaeologists believe
that the island of Ceylon was the
| Ophir of Solomon's time. The ancient
| Romans called 1t Taprobane, and Mill
| ton, as we'll as Ovid, Strabo and Pliny,
! referred to it by that name. In another
! form the name is "Tamba-pa In
the old Sinhalese chronicles. The
Arabs called it "Serendib." In India,
| twenty or twenty-five centuries ago,
| it was known as Lanka, which means
| the respondent" name to which ma
tive Tamils and Sinhalese still cling.
| The Siamese called Ceylon Tewa
Lanka, meaning divine Lanka." To
! the Chinese 1t was "the isle-of jew
els" to the Greeks, the land of the
/ hyacinth and the ruby" and to the In
dian Buddhists 1.-The pearl upon the
brow of India" To all of the nations
of old whose ships traded at Its ports,
| Ceylon was a treasure house Of pre-
cious stones, and it remains so even
| to this day.
Besides elephants, for which Ceylon
has been famous from the dawn Of
| history, and which 1t now furnishes to
| the Indian rajahs, who have not taken
to the motor car as more practicable
conveyance, the island drove a large
trade in pearls and other gems in the
tenth century. When Marco Polo vis-
tied Ceylon, returning from his sojourn
at the court of Kubla Khan, the king
of the Sinhalese possessed ruby re-
| puted TO be the largest In the world.
| So beautiful was this stone that the
| Chinese emperor sent an embassy to
| Ceylon begging the king to sell 1t to
him. and Offering to let the owner
name his price. The monarch did not
sell the ruby, but let 1t leak out to
Kubla >Khan's representatives that
| upon Adams peak was the sepulcher
of the first man, and that some of
his hair and teeth. and a dish from
which he ate. were still in a good
state of preservation. The Chinaman
was so interested that he sent a Sec
ond embassy, loaded with gifts, and
finally persuaded the Ceylon king to
sell him a brace of Father Adam s
| grinders, a wisp of hair and a green
porphyry dish. for a kings ransom.
To judge from the facility with which
some of the Sinhalese merchants of
the present time palm off fraudulent
| jewels upon the innocent, some of the
blood of the swindler of Kubla Khan
has descended to certain soft voiced
residents Of Colombo town.
The pearl fisheries of Ceylon are the
oldest in the world. and 1t is not i'm
probable that pearl fishing in the gulf
| of Mannar is one of the Oldest indus
tries of the earth. At any rate, 1t gave
employment thousands of years ago TO
| ancestors OF the pearl divers who ex-
| ploit the ocean bed today. Then, as
now, the rich rajahs of India were the
| heaviest purchasers of the products OF
! the pearl banks. Traditions of the first
pearl fisheries go back into the misty
past. The history of the enterprise
dates from the sixth century before
| Christ In the year $50 b. c. Wijaya,
| the first Sinhalese king, made a pres
ent OF Ceylon pearls to his father-in-
| law, the Pandyan king of Madura. In
| Pliny's time the gulf of Mannar was
the place from which the finest pearls
were brought to Rome to adorn the
brows of the patrician women of the
| Eternal City, and Pliny refers to the
| fisheries as the most productive In the
world. Ptolemy knew of their exist
| ence, and during his reign Mediter-
ranean shippers had sailing charts by
which the banks were reached.
| Since 1906 q corporation has leased
| the rights to fish for pearls, paying
| the Ceylon government the round sum
of s1O0,0 900 a year and selling stock In
| London to furnish the enterprise with
| funds. Just why John Bull holds and
| leases the pearl banks which are be-
yond the three-mile limit, supposed to
| mark the point at which the contents
Of the ocean become international pub
| lie property, is not quite clear, but
| inasmuch as the British government
proposes to shoot first and litlgate the
| question later, in the event of "poach-
ing" acres of pearl bearing oysters ly-
ing upon the "paars" are safe from out
| siders.
When the Dutch and Portuguese
fought for the control of Ceylon 1t was
etiquette for the conqueror to destroy
the records as we'll as the buildings that
marked the occupancy of the con-
| ouered. Because of this the early MS
| tory of the pearl fisheries is somewhat
obscure. It is known, however, that
between 1868 and 1896, under the Dutch
the business flourished and brought IN
rich revenues.
When the English replaced the Dutch
nearls were harvested rather regularly
in 1899. when a series of unaccountable
| failures was recorded. From prehis-
toric times occasional unproductive
wear had been accepted as inevitable
but the British governor OF Ceylon. slI