At Kharrack, a place still further in the progress down the Gulph, between Cape Sertes and Cape Bustion, is a town which was once in the possession of the Danes; and it is singular that the people who claim a Danish blood are still very fair complexioned, and have light red hair, which may confirm their traditional accounts of their origin. The same nation had also an establishment in a deep bay near Musseldom; and the fort exists to this day. On Cape Bustion there is a mine of copper, which was formerly worked by the Portuguese: they built also a fort there, which still exists, but the mine is no longer worked, and indeed is almost forgotten. Some years ago, Mr. Bruce, the Assistant Resident at Bushire, was a prisoner among the Arabs on this part of the coast. He was told, that immediately behind the range of mountains which lines their shore, there was a river that came from near Shiraz, and run down to Gombroon; this is, probably, the Bend-emir, which, according to other accounts, is traced indeed towards Gombroon, but there expends itself in the sands. Khoresser is the name of a small river which falls into the sea nearly under the Asses Ears; and on the banks of which is situated the town of Tangistoun. At the mouth of this river is a small island, formed by the sands brought down; which adapts this situation to Arrian’s account of Hieratemis. At the place marked by Dr. Vincent as Podargus there is now no torrent: but I learn from Dr. Jukes and Mr. Bruce, that at Harem, situated thirty miles inland on the declivity of the mountains to the eastward, there is a water which finds its way to the sea, and may, perhaps, accord with the position required.
The islands in the Gulph of Persia retain little of their political celebrity. Ormus (ever the most barren, its soil being composed of salt and sulphur) still displays its arched reservoirs, which afford good watering places for vessels, and which are said never to dry up. On the island of Kenn, according to the people of the country, is found, after rain, gold dust in the channels of the torrents. And Bahrein, which is now in the hands of the Wahabees, is still noted for the fresh springs which issue from the earth under the sea, and from which the Arabs contrive to water their ships by placing over the spot a vessel with a syphon attached to it. Captain Skeine, who commanded an Arab ship, told the gentleman (who communicated the circumstances to me), that he had himself drawn the water at the depth of one fathom. The same submarine springs extend along the neighbouring coast of Arabia. Kharrack, which is now the principal watering place on the north of the Gulph, and the island, where the pilots for the Bussorah river are stationed, is perhaps good for few other purposes. The Sheik indeed, though enjoying profound peace, presented memorials to the Sheik of Bushire, representing that his troops and himself were in a state of starvation. Among the duties entrusted by the Government of Shiraz to the Nasakchee Bashee, he was instructed to proceed to Kharrack, to inspect the fortifications, and to report on their capability of defence.
Pearl-Fishery.—There is, perhaps, no place in the world where those things which are esteemed riches among men, abound more than in the Persian gulph. Its bottom is studded with pearls, and its coasts with mines of precious ore. The island of Bahrein, on the Arabian shore, has been considered the most productive bank of the pearl oysters: but the island of Kharrack now shares the reputation. The fishery extends along the whole of the Arabian coast, and to a large proportion of the Persian side of the gulph. Verdistan, Nabon, and Busheab, on that side, are more particularly mentioned; but indeed it is a general 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.