A Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, in the Years 1808 and 1809. James Justinian Morier
rule, that wherever in the gulph there is a shoal, there is also the pearl oyster.
The fishery, though still in itself as prolific as ever, is not perhaps carried on with all the activity of former years; since it declined in consequence by the transfer of the English market to the banks of the coast of Ceylon. But the Persian pearl is never without a demand; though little of the produce of the fishery comes direct into Persia. The trade has now almost entirely centred at Muscat. From Muscat the greater part of the pearls are exported to Surat; and, as the agents of the Indian merchants are constantly on the spot, and as the fishers prefer the certain sale of their merchandize there to a higher but less regular price in any other market, the pearls may often be bought at a less price in India, than to an individual they would have been sold in Arabia. There are two kinds; the yellow pearl, which is sent to the Mahratta market; and the white pearl, which is circulated through Bussorah and Bagdad into Asia Minor, and thence into the heart of Europe; though, indeed, a large proportion of the whole is arrested in its progress at Constantinople to deck the Sultanas of the Seraglio. The pearl of Ceylon peels off; that of the Gulph is as firm as the rock upon which it grows; and, though it loses in colour and water 1 per cent. annually for fifty years, yet it still loses less than that of Ceylon. It ceases after fifty years to lose any thing.
About twenty years ago the fishery was farmed out by the different chiefs along the coast: thus the Sheiks of Bahrein and of El Katif, having assumed a certain portion of the Pearl Bank, obliged every speculator to pay them a certain sum for the right of fishing. At present, however, the trade which still employs a considerable number of boats is carried on entirely by individuals. There are two modes of speculation: the first, by which the adventurer charters a boat by the month or by the season; in this boat he sends his agent to superintend the whole, with a crew of about fifteen men, including generally five or six divers. The divers commence their work at sun-rise and finish at sun-set. The oysters, that have been brought up, are successively confided to the superintendant, and when the business of the day is done, they are opened on a piece of white linen: the agent of course keeping a very active inspection over every shell. The man who, on opening an oyster, finds a valuable pearl, immediately puts it into his mouth, by which they fancy that it gains a finer water; and, at the end of the fishery, he is entitled to a present. The whole speculation costs about one hundred and fifty piastres a month; the divers getting ten piastres; and the rest of the crew in proportion. The second and the safest mode of adventure is by an agreement between two parties, where one defrays all the expences of the boat and provisions, &c. and the other conducts the labours of the fishery. The pearl obtained undergoes a valuation, according to which it is equally divided: but the speculator is further entitled by the terms of the partnership to purchase the other half of the pearl at ten per cent. lower than the market price.
The divers seldom live to a great age. Their bodies break out in sores, and their eyes become very weak and blood-shot. They can remain under water five minutes; and their dives succeed one another very rapidly, as by delay the state of their bodies would soon prevent the renewal of the exertion. They oil the orifice of the ears, and put a horn over their nose. In general life they are restricted to a certain regimen; and to food composed of dates and other light ingredients. They can dive from ten to fifteen fathoms, and sometimes even more; and their prices increase according to the depth. The largest pearl are generally found in the deepest water, as the success on the bank of Kharrack, which lies very low, has demonstrated. From such depths, and on this bank, the most valuable pearls have been brought up; the largest indeed which Sir Harford Jones ever saw, was one that had been fished up at Kharrack in nineteen fathoms water.
It has been often contested, whether the pearl in the live oyster is as hard as it appears in the market; or whether it acquires its consistence by exposure. I was assured by a gentleman (who had been encamped at Congoon close to the bank; and who had often bought the oysters from the boys, as they came out of the water,) that he had opened the shell immediately, and when the fish was still alive, had found the pearl already hard and formed. He had frequently also cut the pearl in two, and ascertained it to be equally hard throughout, in layers like the coats of an onion. But Sir Harford Jones, who has had much knowledge of the fishery, informs me, that it is easy by pressing the pearl between the fingers, when first taken out of the shell, to feel that it has not yet attained its ultimate consistency. A very short exposure, however, to the air gives the hardness. The two opinions are easily reconcileable by supposing, either a misconception in language of the relative term hard, (by which one authority may mean every thing in the oyster which is not gelatinous, while the other would confine it more strictly to the full and perfect consistency of the pearl;) or by admitting that there may be an original difference in the character of the two species, the yellow and the white pearl; while the identity of the specimen, on which either observation has been formed, has not been noted.
The fish itself is fine eating; nor, indeed in this respect is there any difference between the common and the pearl oyster. The seed pearls, which are very indifferent, are arranged round the lips of the oyster, as if they were inlaid by the hand of an artist. The large pearl is nearly in the centre of the shell, and in the middle of the fish.
In Persia the pearl is employed for less noble ornaments than in Europe: there it is principally reserved to adorn the kaleoons or water pipes, the tassels for bridles, some trinkets, the inlaying of looking glasses and toys, for which indeed the inferior kinds are used; or, when devoted more immediately to their persons, it is generally strung as beads to twist about in the hand, or as a rosary for prayer.
The fishermen always augur a good season of the pearl, when there have been plentiful rains; and so accurately has experience taught them, that when corn is very cheap they increase their demands for fishing. The connexion is so well ascertained, (at least so fully credited, not by them only, but by the merchants,) that the prices paid to the fishermen are, in fact, always raised, when there have been great rains.
II. Bushire (or more properly Abuschahr, for the former is but the corruption of an English sailor) is now the principal Port of Persia. It stands in lat. 28°. 59. in long. 50°. 43. E. of Greenwich. It is situated on the extremity of a peninsula, which is formed by the sea on one side, and on the other by an inlet terminating in extensive swamps. At the narrowest part of this neck of land the seas, in the equinoctial spring tides, have sometimes met and rendered it an island; but this has happened once only during the ten years which preceded our visit, and the effect then continued but two or three days; and so visible is the present encroachment of the land upon the inlet, that the recurrence of such an overflow will soon be entirely impossible. Every appearance, indeed, proves, that the whole of the peninsula has been thus gained from the sea. The extreme flatness of the general surface, the soil itself, the water, and the relative position of the whole peninsula to the mountains which rise abruptly from its inland extremities, suggest the supposition of such an accumulation.
On the southern bank of the inlet is a long range of rocks, which, though now two or three miles distant, may at one time have been washed by the sea. In digging for water, the people of the peninsula have sunk wells to the depth of thirty fathoms; and before they could reach the spring they have been obliged to perforate three layers of a soft stone composed of sand and shells. Generally of the whole soil, sand is the principal ingredient.
The town itself of Bushire occupies the very point of the peninsula, and forms a triangle, of which the base on the land side is alone fortified. At unequal distances along the walls, there are twelve towers, two of which form the town-gate; they are all chequered at the top by holes, through which the inhabitants may point their musketry, and those at the gates have a variety of such contrivances. There is at the the door a large brass Portuguese gun, a sixty-eight pounder, on a very uncertain carriage; besides two or three in a much ruder state. It is said that on some invasion when the place was beset, this gun was fired, but the concussion was so great and unexpected, that it blew open the gates, shook down fragments of the towers, and gave the enemy an easy entrance. The materials of the town (a soft sandy stone, incrustated with shells) are drawn from the ruins of Reshire, in its neighbourhood. Most of the adjacent villages are built of the same stone, the only species indeed found in the peninsula, and which was already thus prepared for their use in the remains of Reshire. But such materials are continually