Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon Part 35

See P. 353.

In Bhootan, at the south-eastern extremity of the Himalayas, a fish is found, the scientific name of which is unknown to me, but it is called by the natives the _Bora-chung_, and by European residents the "ground-fish of Bhootan." It is described in the _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for_ 1839, by a writer (who had seen it alive), as being about two feet in length, and cylindrical, with a thick body, somewhat shaped like a pike, but rounder, the nose curved upwards, the colour olive-green, with orange stripes, and the head speckled with crimson.[1] This fish, according to the native story, is caught not in the rivers in whose vicinity it is found, but "in perfectly dry places in the middle of gra.s.sy jungle, sometimes as far as two miles from the banks." Here, on finding a hole four or five inches in diameter, they commence to dig, and continue till they come to water; and presently the _bora-chung_ rises to the surface, sometimes from a depth of nineteen feet. In these extemporised wells these fishes are found always in pairs, and I when brought to the surface they glide rapidly over the ground with a serpentine motion. This account appeared in 1839; but some years later, Mr. Campbell, the Superintendent of Darjeeling, in a communication to the same journal[2], divested the story of much of its exaggeration, by stating, as the result of personal inquiry in Bhootan, that the _bora-chung_ inhabits the jheels and slow-running streams near the hills, but lives princ.i.p.ally on the banks, into which it penetrates from one to five or six feet. The entrance to these retreats leading from the river into the bank is generally a few inches below the surface, so that the fish can return to the water at pleasure. The mode of catching them is by introducing the hand into these holes; and the _bora-chungs_ are found generally two in each chamber, coiled concentrically like snakes. It is not believed that they bore their own burrows, but that they take possession of those made by land-crabs. Mr.

Campbell denies that they are more capable than other fish of moving on dry ground. From the particulars given, the _bora-chung_ would appear to be an _Ophiocephalus_, probably the _O. barka_ described by Buchanan, as inhabiting holes in the banks of rivers tributary to the Ganges.

[Footnote 1: Paper by Mr. J.T. PEARSON, _Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng._, vol.

viii p. 551.]

[Footnote 2: _Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng._, vol. xi. p. 963.]

CHAP. XI.

Sh.e.l.lS.

_Mollusca.--Radiata, &c._

Ceylon has long been renowned for the beauty and variety of the sh.e.l.ls which abound in its seas and inland waters, and in which an active trade has been organised by the industrious Moors, who clean them with great expertness, arrange them in satin-wood boxes, and send them to Colombo and all parts of the island for sale. In general, however, these specimens are more prized for their beauty than valued for their rarity, though some of the "Argus" cowries[1] have been sold as high as _four guineas_ a pair.

[Footnote 1: _Cypraea Argus_.]

One of the princ.i.p.al sources whence their supplies are derived is the beautiful Bay of Venloos, to the north of Batticaloa, formed by the embouchure of the Natoor river. The scenery at this spot is enchanting.

The sea is overhung by gentle acclivities wooded to the summit; and in an opening between two of these eminences the river flows through a cl.u.s.ter of little islands covered with mangroves and acacias. A bar of rocks projects across it, at a short distance from the sh.o.r.e; and these are frequented all day long by pelicans, that come at sunrise to fish, and at evening return to their solitary breeding-places remote from the beach. The strand is literally covered with beautiful sh.e.l.ls in rich profusion, and the dealers from Trincomalie know the proper season to visit the bay for each particular description. The entire coast, however, as far north as the Elephant Pa.s.s, is indented by little rocky inlets, where sh.e.l.ls of endless variety may be collected in great abundance.[1] During the north-east monsoon a formidable surf bursts upon the sh.o.r.e, which is here piled high with mounds of yellow sand; and the remains of sh.e.l.ls upon the water mark show how rich the sea is in mollusca. Amongst them are prodigious numbers of the ubiquitous violet-coloured _Ianthina_[2], which rises when the ocean is calm, and by means of its inflated vesicles floats lightly on the surface.

[Footnote 1: In one of these beautiful little bays near Catchavelly, between Trincomalie and Batticaloa, I found the sand within the wash of the sea literally covered with mollusca and sh.e.l.ls, and amongst others a species of _Bullia_ (B. vittata, I think), the inhabitant of which, has the faculty of mooring itself firmly by sending down its membranous foot into the wet sand, where, imbibing the water, this organ expands horizontally into a broad, fleshy disc, by which the animal anchors itself, and thus secured, collects its food in the ripple of the waves.

On the slightest alarm, the water is discharged, the disc collapses into its original dimensions, and the sh.e.l.l and its inhabitant disappear together beneath the sand.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BULLIA VITTATA]

[Footnote 2: _Ianthina communis_, Krause and _I. prolongata_, Blainv.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: IANTHINA.]

The trade in sh.e.l.ls is one of extreme antiquity in Ceylon. The Gulf of Manaar has been fished from the earliest times for the large chank sh.e.l.l, _Turbinella_ _rapa_, to be exported to India, where it is still sawn into rings and worn as anklets and bracelets by the women of Hindustan. Another use for these sh.e.l.ls is their conversion into wind instruments, which are sounded in the temples on all occasions of ceremony. A chank, in which the whorls, instead of running from left to right, as in the ordinary sh.e.l.l, are reversed, and run from right to left, is regarded with such reverence that a specimen formerly sold for its weight in gold, but one may now be had for four or five pounds.

COSMAS INDICO-PLEUSTES, writing in the fifth century, describes a place on the west coast of Ceylon, which he calls Marallo, and says it produced "[Greek: kochlious]," which THEVENOT translates "oysters;" in which case Marallo might be conjectured to be Bentotte, near Colombo, which yields the best edible "oysters" in Ceylon.[1] But the sh.e.l.l in question was most probably the chank, and Marallo was Mantotte, off which it is found in great numbers.[2] In fact, two centuries later Abouzeyd, an Arab, who wrote an account of the trade and productions of India, speaks of these sh.e.l.ls by the name they still bear, which he states to be _schenek_[3]; but "schenek" is not an Arabic word, and is merely an attempt to spell the local term, _chank_, in Arabic characters.

[Footnote 1: COSMAS INDICO-PLEUSTES, in Thevenot's ed. t i. p. 21.]

[Footnote 2: At Kottiar, near Trincomalie, I was struck with the prodigious size of the edible oysters, which were brought to us at the rest-house. The sh.e.l.l of one of these measured a little more than eleven inches in length, by half as many broad: thus unexpectedly attesting the correctness of one of the stories related by the historians of Alexander's expedition, that in India they had found oysters a foot long. PLINY says: "In Indico mari Alexandri rerum auctores pedalia inveniri prodidere."--_Nat. Hist._ lib. x.x.xii. ch. 31. DARWIN says, that amongst the fossils of Patagonia, he found "a ma.s.sive gigantic oyster, sometimes even a foot in diameter."--_Nat. Voy._, ch. viii.]

[Footnote 3:--ABOUZEYD, _Voyages Arabes,_ &c., t. i. p. 6; REINAUD, _Memoire sur l'Inde,_ &c p. 222.]

BERTOLACCI mentions a curious local peculiarity[1] observed by the fishermen in the natural history of the chank. "All sh.e.l.ls," he says, "found to the northward of a line drawn from a point about midway from Manaar to the opposite coast (of India) are of the kind called _patty_, and are distinguished by a short flat head; and all those found to the southward of that line are of the kind called _pajel_, and are known from having a longer and more pointed head than the former. Nor is there ever an instance of deviation from this singular law of nature. The _Wallampory_, or 'right-hand chanks,' are found of both kinds."

[Footnote 1: See also the _Asiatic Journal for_ 1827, p. 469.]

This tendency of particular localities to re-produce certain specialities of form and colour is not confined to the sea or to the instance of the chank sh.e.l.l. In the gardens which line the suburbs of Galle in the direction of Matura the stems of the coco-nut and jak trees are profusely covered with the sh.e.l.ls of the beautiful striped _Helix hamastoma_. Stopping frequently to collect them, I was led to observe that each separate garden seemed to possess a variety almost peculiar to itself; in one the mouth of every individual sh.e.l.l was _red_; in another, separated from the first only by a wall, _black_; and in others (but less frequently) _pure white_; whilst the varieties of external colouring were equally local. In one enclosure they were nearly all red, and in an adjoining one brown.[1]

[Footnote 1: DARWIN, in his _Naturalist's Voyage_, mentions a parallel instance of the localised propagation of colours amoungst the cattle which range the pasturage of East Falkland Island: "Round Mount Osborne about half of some of the herds were mouse-coloured, a tint no common anywhere else,--near Mount Pleasant dark-brown prevailed; whereas south of Choiseul Sound white beasts with black heads and feet were common."--Ch. ix. p. 192.]

A trade more ancient by far than that carried on in chanks, and infinitely more renowned, is the fishery of pearls on the west coast of Ceylon, bordering the Gulf of Manaar. No scene in Ceylon presents so dreary an aspect as the long sweep of desolate sh.o.r.e to which, from time immemorial, adventurers have resorted from the uttermost ends of the earth in search of the precious pearls for which this gulf is renowned.

On approaching it from sea the only perceptible landmark is a building erected by Lord Guildford, as a temporary residence for the Governor, and known by the name of the "Doric," from the style of its architecture. A few coco-nut palms appear next above the low sandy beach, and presently are discovered the scattered houses which form the villages of Aripo and Condatchy.

Between these two places, or rather between the Kalaar and Arrive river, the sh.o.r.e is raised to a height of many feet, by enormous mounds of sh.e.l.ls, the acc.u.mulations of ages, the millions of oysters[1], robbed of their pearls, having been year after year flung into heaps, that extend for a distance of many miles.

[Footnote 1: It is almost unnecessary to say that the sh.e.l.l fish which produces the true Oriental pearls is not an oyster, but belongs to the genus Avicula, or more correctly, Meleagrina. It is the _Meleagrina Margaritifera_ of Lamarck.]

During the progress of a pearl-fishery, this singular and dreary expanse becomes suddenly enlivened by the crowds who congregate from distant parts of India; a town is improvised by the construction of temporary dwellings, huts of timber and cajans[1], with tents of palm leaves or canvas; and bazaars spring up, to feed the mult.i.tude on land, as well as the seamen and divers in the fleets of boats that cover the bay.

[Footnote 1: _Cajan_ is the local term for the plaited fronds of a coco-nut.]

I visited the pearl banks officially in 1848 in company with Capt.

Stenart, the official inspector. My immediate object was to inquire into the causes of the suspension of the fisheries, and to ascertain the probability of reviving a source of revenue, the gross receipts from which had failed for several years to defray the cost of conservancy. In fact, between 1837 and 1854, the pearl banks were an annual charge, instead of producing an annual income, to the colony. The conjecture, hastily adopted, to account for the disappearance of mature sh.e.l.ls, had reference to mechanical causes; the received hypothesis being that the young broods had been swept off their accustomed feeding grounds, by the establishment of unusual currents, occasioned by deepening the narrow pa.s.sage between Ceylon and India at Paumbam. It was also suggested, that a previous Governor, in his eagerness to replenish the colonial treasury, had so "sc.r.a.ped" and impoverished the beds as to exterminate the oysters. To me, neither of these suppositions appeared worthy of acceptance; for, in the frequent disruptions of Adam's Bridge, there was ample evidence that the currents in the Gulf of Manaar had been changed at former times without destroying the pearl beds: and moreover the oysters had disappeared on many former occasions, without any imputation of improper management on the part of the conservators; and returned after much longer intervals of absence than that which fell under my own notice, and which was then creating serious apprehension in the colony.

A similar interruption had been experienced between 1820 and 1828: the Dutch had had no fishing for twenty-seven years, from 1768 till 1796[1]; and they had been equally unsuccessful from 1732 till 1746. The Arabs were well acquainted with similar vicissitudes, and Albyronni (a contemporary of Avicenna), who served under Mahmoud of Ghuznee, and wrote in the eleventh century, says that the pearl fishery, which formerly existed in the Gulf of Serendib, had become exhausted in his time, simultaneously with the appearance of a fishery at Sofala, in the country of the Zends, where pearls were unknown before; and hence, he says, arose the conjecture that the pearl oyster of Serendib had migrated to Sofala.[2]

[Footnote 1: This suspension was in some degree attributable to disputes with the Nabob of Arcot and other chiefs, and the proprietors of temples on the opposite coast of India, who claimed, a right to partic.i.p.ate in the fisheries of the Gulf of Manaar.]

[Footnote 2: "Il y avait autrefois dans le Golfe de Serendyb, une pecherie de perles qui s'est epuisee de notre temps. D'un autre cote il s'est forme une pecherie de Sofala dans le pays des Zends, la ou il n'en existait pas auparavant--on dit que c'est la pecherie de Serendyb qui s'est transportee a Sofala."--ALBYROUNI, _in_ RENAUD'S _Fragmens Arabes, &c_, p. 125; see also REINAUD'S _Memoire sur l'Inde_, p. 228.]

It appeared to me that the explanation of the phenomenon was to be sought, not merely in external causes, but also in the instincts and faculties of the animals themselves, and, on my return to Colombo, I ventured to renew a recommendation, which had been made years before, that a scientific inspector should be appointed to study the habits and the natural history of the pearl-oyster, and that his investigations should be facilitated by the means at the disposal of the Government.

Dr. Kelaart was appointed to this office, by Sir H.G. Ward, in 1857, and his researches speedily developed results of great interest. In opposition to the received opinion that the pearl-oyster is incapable of voluntary movement, and unable of itself to quit the place to which it is originally attached[1], he demonstrated, not only that it possesses locomotive powers, but also that their exercise is indispensable to its oeconomy when obliged to search for food, or compelled to escape from local impurities. He showed that, for this purpose, it can sever its byssus, and re-form it at pleasure, so as to migrate and moor itself in favourable situations.[2] The establishment of this important fact may tend to solve the mystery of the occasional disappearances of the oyster; and if coupled with the further discovery that it is susceptible of translation from place to place, and even from salt to brackish water, it seems reasonable to expect that beds may be formed with advantage in positions suitable for its growth and protection. Thus, like the edible oyster of our own sh.o.r.es, the pearl-oyster may be brought within the domain of pisciculture, and banks may be created in suitable places, just as the southern sh.o.r.es of France are now being colonised with oysters, under the direction of M. Coste.[3] The operation of sowing the sea with pearl, should the experiment succeed, would be as gorgeous in reality, as it is grand in conception: and the wealth of Ceylon, in her "treasures of the deep," might eclipse the renown of her gems when she merited the t.i.tle of the "Island of Rubies."

[Footnote 1: STEUART'S _Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon_, p. 27: CORDINER'S _Ceylon, &c_, vol. ii. p. 45.]

[Footnote 2: See Dr. KELAART'S Report on the Pearl Oyster in the _Ceylon Calendar for 1858--Appendix_, p. 14.]

[Footnote 3: _Rapport de_ M. COSTE, Professeur d'Embryogenie, &c., Paris, 1858.]

On my arrival at Aripo, the pearl-divers, under the orders of their Adapanaar, put to sea, and commenced the examination of the banks.[1]

The persons engaged in this calling are chiefly Tamils and Moors, who are trained for the service by diving for chanks. The pieces of apparatus employed to a.s.sist the diver in his operations are exceedingly simple in their character: they consist merely of a stone, about thirty pounds' weight, (to accelerate the rapidity of his descent,) which is suspended over the side of the boat, with a loop attached to it for receiving the foot; and of a net-work basket, which he takes down to the bottom and fills with the oysters as he collects them. Ma.s.sOUDI, one of the earliest Arabian geographers, describing, in the ninth century, the habits of the pearl-divers in the Persian Gulf, says that, before descending, each filled his ears with cotton steeped in oil, and compressed his nostrils by a piece of tortoise-sh.e.l.l.[2] This practice continues there to the present day[3]; but the diver of Ceylon rejects all such expedients; he inserts his foot in the "sinking stone" and inhales a full breath; presses his nostrils with his left hand; raises his body as high as possible above water, to give force to his descent: and, liberating the stone from its fastenings, he sinks rapidly below the surface. As soon as he has reached the bottom, the stone is drawn up, and the diver, throwing himself on his face, commences with alacrity to fill his basket with oysters. This, on a concerted signal, is hauled rapidly to the surface; the diver a.s.sisting his own ascent by springing on the rope as it rises.

[Footnote 1: Detailed accounts of the pearl fishery of Ceylon and the conduct of the divers, will be found in PERCIVAL's _Ceylon_, ch. iii.: and in CORDINER'S _Ceylon_, vol. ii. ch. xvi. There is also a valuable paper on the same subject by Mr. LE BECK, in the _Asiatic Researches_, vol. v. p. 993; but by far the most able and intelligent description is contained in the _Account of the Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon_, by JAMES STEUART, Esq., Inspector of the Pearl Banks, 4to. Colombo, 1843.]

[Footnote 2: Ma.s.sOUDI says that the Persian divers, as they could not breathe through their nostrils, _cleft the root of the ear_ for that purpose: "_Ils se fendaient la racine de l'oreille pour respirer_; en effet, ils ne peuvent se servir pour cet objet des narines, vu qu'ils se les bouchent avec des morceaux d'ecailles de tortue marine on bien avec des morceaux de corne ayant la forme d'un fer de lance. En meme temps ils se mettent dans l'oreille du coton trempe dans de l'huile."--_Moroudj-al-Dzeheb,_ &c., REINAUD, _Memoire sur l'Inde,_ p.

228.]

[Footnote 3: Colonel WILSON says they compress the nose with horn, and close the ears with beeswax. See _Memorandum on the Pearl Fisheries in Persian Gulf.--Journ. Geogr. Soc._ 1833, vol. iii. p. 283.]

Improbable tales have been told of the capacity which these men acquire of remaining for prolonged periods under water. The divers who attended on this occasion were amongst the most expert on the coast, yet not one of them was able to complete a full minute below. Captain Steuart, who filled for many years the office of Inspector of the Pearl Banks, a.s.sured me that he had never known a diver to continue at the bottom longer than eighty-seven seconds, nor to attain a greater depth than thirteen fathoms; and on ordinary occasions they seldom exceeded fifty-five seconds in nine fathom water[1].

[Footnote 1: RIBEYRO says that a diver could remain below whilst two _credos_ were being repeated: "Il s'y tient l'es.p.a.ce de deux _credo_."--Lib. i. ch. xxii. p. 169. PERCIVAL says the usual time for them to be under water was two minutes, but that some divers stayed _four_ or _five_, and one _six_ minutes,--_Ceylon_ p. 91; LE BECK says that in 1797 he saw a Caffre boy from Karical remain down for the s.p.a.ce of seven minutes.--_Asiat. Res_ vol. v. p. 402.]

The only precaution to which the Ceylon diver devotedly resorts, is the mystic ceremony of the shark-charmer, whose exorcism is an indispensable preliminary to every fishery. His power is believed to be hereditary; nor is it supposed that the value of his incantations is at all dependent upon the religious faith professed by the operator, for the present head of the family happens to be a Roman Catholic. At the time of our visit this mysterious functionary was ill and unable to attend; but he sent an accredited subst.i.tute, who a.s.sured me that although he himself was ignorant of the grand and mystic secret, the mere fact of his presence, as a representative of the higher authority, would be recognised and respected by the sharks.