When the pearl-oysters are brought up they are left on deck over night and the next morning are opened by means of a curved knife, six inches long, called _miflaket_. Before the days of English commerce the mother-of-pearl was thrown away as worthless. Now it has a good market-value and (after being scraped free of the small parasites that infest the outer shell) is packed in wooden crates and exported in large quantities. The total value of this export in 1897 was £5,694 ($28,000). The Arabs have asked me in amazement what in the world the “Franks” do with empty sea-shells; and some tell idle tales of how they are ground up into pearl dust and pressed into artificial gems, or are used as a veneer to cover brick houses. On shore the pearls are classified by the merchants, according to weight, size, shape, color and brilliancy. There are button-pearls, pendants, roundish, oval, flat, and perfect pearls; pearls, white, yellow, golden, pink, blue, azure, green, grey, dull and black; seed-pearls the size of grains of sand and pearls as large as an Arab’s report, emphasized with frequent _wallahs_, can make them. I have seen a pendant pearl the size of a hazelnut worth a few thousand rupees but there are Arabs who will swear by the prophet’s beard (each hair of which is sacred!) that they have brought up pearls as large as a pigeon’s egg. The pearl brokers carry their wares about tied in bags of turkey-red calico; they weigh them in tiny brass scales and learn their exact size by an ingenious device consisting of a nest of brass sieves, called _taoos_, six in number, with apertures slightly differing in size. The pearls are put into the largest sieve first; those that do not fall through its pea-sized holes are called, _Ras_, “chief”; such are generally pearls of great price, although their value depends most on weight and perfection of form. The second size is called _Batu_, “belly,” and the third _Dhail_, “tail.” Color has only a fashion-value; Europe prefers white and the Orient the golden-yellow; black pearls are not highly esteemed by Orientals. Before they are shipped the large pearls are cleaned in _reeta_ a kind of native soap-powder, and the smaller ones in soft brown sugar; then they are tied up in calico and sold in lots by weight, each bundle being supposed to contain pearls of average equal value. How it is possible to collect custom dues on _pearls_ among a people whose consciences rival their wide breast-pockets in concealing capacity, surpasses comprehension. But the thing is done, for the farmer of the custom dues grows rich and the statistics of export are not pure guess-work.