The prices in different seasons vary greatly. In 1860, the average was Rs.134.23 per 1000, which was unprecedentedly large; the nearest to this was Rs.79.07 in 1874 and Rs.49 in 1905. In 1880, the average price per 1000 was only Rs.11, which was the lowest ever recorded. The records for individual days greatly exceed these limits. The highest figures at which oysters have sold on any one day was Rs.309 per 1000 in 1906, the equivalent for each oyster of 10½ cents in American money. In 1874, the price reached Rs.210 per 1000, and in 1905, the maximum price was Rs.124, or about 4¼ cents for each oyster.
The oyster-buyers are principally wealthy Chetties from Madura, Ramnad, Trichinopoli, Parambakudi, Tevakoddai, Paumben, Kumbhakonam, and other towns of southern India. These are quite different from the scantily clothed Naddukoddai Chetties so common in Ceylon. Many of them are fashionably dressed in semi-European costume, with walking-stick, patent leather boots, and other evidences of contact with Europe. Smaller quantities of oysters are purchased by Moormen of Kilakarai, Ramnad, Bombay, Adrampatam, Tondi, etc. A few oysters are also purchased by the Nadans or Chánár caste people of Perunali, Kamuti, and Karakal. Over 99 per cent. of the 50,346,601 oysters sold by the government in 1905 were secured by Indian buyers, and less than one per cent. by Cingalese. A few of the oysters—from two to five per cent.—are sent to Indian and Ceylon ports, but most of them are opened at the fishing camp.
The purchaser of only a small number of oysters may open them at once by means of a knife, and with his fingers and eyes search for the pearls. By this method very small pearls may be easily overlooked, and it is scarcely practicable in handling large quantities of oysters. These are removed to private inclosures known as toddis or tottis, situated some distance from the inhabited portions of the camp; where, exposed to the solar heat, they are permitted to putrefy, and the fleshy parts to be eaten by the swarms of big red-eyed bluebottle flies, and the residue is then repeatedly washed.
Shakspere may have had in view some such scene as this when he spoke of the “pearl in your foul oyster.” The lady who cherishes and adorns herself with a necklace of Ceylon pearls would be horrified were she to see and especially to smell the putrid mass from which her lustrous gems are evolved. The great quantity of repulsive bluebottle flies are so essential to success in releasing the pearls from the flesh, that a scarcity of them is looked upon as a misfortune to the merchants. However, except it may be at the beginning of a fishery, there is rarely ever a cause for complaint on this score, for commonly they are so numerous as to be a great plague to persons unaccustomed to them, covering everything, and rendering eating and drinking a difficult and unpleasant necessity, until darkness puts a stop to their activities. But the intolerable stench, impossible of description, the quintessence of millions of rotting oysters, fills the place, and makes existence a burden to those who have not acquired odor-proof nostrils. This animal decomposition seems almost harmless to health; indeed, the natives evidently thrive on it, and eat and sleep without apparent notice of the nauseous conditions. And yet vegetable decomposition in this region is usually followed by fatal results. Notwithstanding sanitary precautions and the usual quarantine camp and hospitals, cholera occasionally becomes epidemic and puts a stop to the fishery, as was the case in 1889; but this probably was due more to the violation of ordinary sanitary laws than to the decaying oysters.
In a large toddi the oysters are placed in a ballam, or a dug-out tank or trough, fifteen or twenty feet long and two or three feet deep, smooth on the inside so that pearls may not lodge in the crevices. This tank is covered with matting, and the toddi is closed up, sealed, and guarded for a week or ten days, when the fly maggots will have consumed practically all of the flesh tissues, leaving little else than the shells and pearls. The tank is then filled with sea water to float out the myriads of maggots. Several nude coolies squat along the sides to wash and remove the shells. The valves of each shell are separated, the outsides rubbed together to remove all lodgments for pearls, and the interior examined for attached or encysted pearls. The washers are kept under constant supervision by inspectors to prevent concealment of pearls; they are not permitted to remove their hands from the water except to take out the shells, and under no circumstances are they allowed to carry the hands to the mouth or to any other place in which pearls could be concealed.
After the shells have been removed, fresh supplies of water are added to wash the debris, which is turned over and over repeatedly, the dirty water being bailed out through sieves to prevent the loss of pearls. After thorough washings, every particle of the sarraku, or material at the bottom of the ballam, consisting of sand, broken pieces of shell, pearls, etc., is gathered up in a cotton cloth. Later the sarraku is spread out on cloths in the sun to dry, and the most conspicuous pearls are removed. When dry, the material is critically examined over and over again, and winnowed and rewinnowed, and after it seems that everything of value has been secured, the refuse is turned over to women and children, whose keen eyes and deft fingers pick out many masi-tul or dust-pearls; and even after the skill of these has been exhausted, the apparently worthless refuse has a market value among persons whose patience and skill meets with some reward. It is due largely to the extreme care in the search that so many seed-pearls are found in Ceylon.
And this leads to a discussion of what is commonly known in Ceylon as the “Dixon washing machine.” This is an invention of Mr. G. G. Dixon who constructed it at Marichchikadde in 1904 and 1905, at a total cost to the government of about Rs.162,000,[[154]] including all expenses incidental to the experiment. The machine involves two separate processes; the first consists in separating the shells from the soft portion of the oysters, and the second in recovering the pearls from the resultant sarraku after it has been dried. In 1905, about 5,000,000 oysters were put through this machine,[[155]] but with what result has not been announced.
The shells having pearls attached to the interior surface are turned over to skilled natives, who remove the valuable objects by breaking the shell with hammers, and then with files and other implements remove the irregular pieces of attached shell and otherwise improve the appearance.
In no fishery in the world is the average size of the pearls secured smaller, nor is the relative number greater than in that of Ceylon. It is rare that one is found weighing over ten grains, and the number weighing less than two grains is remarkable. For roundness and orient they are unsurpassed by those of any region. However, Ceylon pearls worth locally Rs.1000 ($400) are by no means abundant. The most valuable one found in the important fishery of 1904, is said to have been sold in the camp for Rs.2500. The fishery of 1905 yielded one weighing 76½ chevu, and valued at Rs.12,000.
The quantity of seed-pearls obtained in the Ceylon fishery exceeds that of any other—probably all other parts of the world. The very smallest—the masi-tul,—for which there is no use whatever in Europe, have an established value in India, being powdered for making chunam for chewing with betel. Those slightly larger,—tul pearls—for which also there is no market in Europe, are placed in the mouth of deceased Hindus of wealth, instead of the rice which is used by poorer people.