IV. 166; Ribeyro, ed. Columbo, 1847, App. p. 196.)
[Ma Huan (J. North China B.R.A.S. XX. p. 213) says that "the King (of
Ceylon) has had an [artificial] pearl pond dug, into which every two or
three years he orders pearl oysters to be thrown, and he appoints men to
keep watch over it. Those who fish for these oysters, and take them to the
authorities for the King's use, sometimes steal and fraudulently sell
them." - H.C.]
The shark-charmers do not now seem to have any claim to be called
Abraiaman or Brahmans, but they may have been so in former days. At the
diamond mines of the northern Circars Brahmans are employed in the
analogous office of propitiating the tutelary genii. The shark-charmers
are called in Tamul Kadal-Katti, "Sea-binders," and in Hindustani
Hai-banda or "Shark-binders." At Aripo they belong to one family,
supposed to have the monopoly of the charm. The chief operator is (or was,
not many years ago) paid by Government, and he also received ten oysters
from each boat daily during the fishery. Tennent, on his visit, found the
incumbent of the office to be a Roman Catholic Christian, but that did not
seem to affect the exercise or the validity of his functions. It is
remarkable that when Tennent wrote, not more than one authenticated
accident from sharks had taken place, during the whole period of the
British occupation.
The time of the fishery is a little earlier than Marco mentions, viz. in
March and April, just between the cessation of the north-east and
commencement of the south-west monsoon. His statement of the depth is
quite correct; the diving is carried on in water of 4 to 10 fathoms deep,
and never in a greater depth than 13.
I do not know the site of the other fishery to which he alludes as
practised in September and October; but the time implies shelter from the
south-west Monsoon, and it was probably on the east side of the island,
where in 1750 there was a fishery, at Trincomalee. (Stewart in Trans.
R.A.S. III. 456 seqq.; Pridham., u.s.; Tennent, II. 564-565;
Ribeyro, as above, App. p. 196.)
[1] So the Barbary coast from Tunis westward was called by the Arabs
Bar-ul-'Adwah, "Terra Transitus," because thence they used to
pass into Spain. (J. As. for Jan. 1846, p. 228.)
[2] Wassaf has Fitan, Mali Fitan, Kabil and meant the names so, as
he shows by silly puns. For my justification in presuming to correct
the names, I must refer to an article, in the J. R. As. Soc.,
N.S. IV. p. 347, on Rashiduddin's Geography.
[3] The same information is given in almost the same terms by Rashiduddin.
(See Elliot, I. 69.) But he (at least in Elliot's translation)
makes Shaikh Jumaluddin the successor of the Devar, instead of
merely the narrator of the circumstances.
