Is hereby given that a Pearl Fishery will take place at Marichchukkaddi, in the Island of Ceylon, on or about February 20, 1907. The Banks to be fished are— The Karativu, Dutch Moderagam and Alanturai Pars, estimated to contain 21,000,000 oysters, sufficient to employ 100 boats for twenty-one days with average loads of 10,000 each per day. The Northwest and Mid-West Cheval, estimated to contain 2,000,000 oysters, sufficient to employ 100 boats for two days with average loads of 10,000 oysters. The Muttuvaratu Par, estimated to contain 8,000,000 oysters, sufficient to employ 100 boats for eight days with average loads as before stated: each boat being fully manned with divers. 2. It is notified that fishing will begin on the first favourable day after February 19. Conditions governing the employment of divers will be issued separately. 3. Marichchukkaddi is on the mainland, eight miles by sea south of Sillavaturai, and supplies of good water and provisions can be obtained there. 4. The Fishery will be conducted on account of the Ceylon Company of Pearl Fishers, Ltd., and the oysters put up to sale in such lots as may be deemed expedient. [Illustration] A populous town springs up with well-planned and lighted streets and vast numbers of temporary abodes of all sorts, according to the means and the caste of the occupants, some of them just large enough for two or three persons to creep into. Although made mostly of poles, mats, _cajans_ or plaited fronds of the cocoanut tree, they furnish ample shelter for the locality and season, the uncertainty of the fishery from year to year being sufficient argument against expensive and substantial buildings. Numerous wells and cisterns yield water for the use of all. Sanitary measures are strictly enforced, with a liberal use of disinfectants. At a considerable distance southward from the settlement are constructed the private _toddis_, or inclosures, for decomposing the oysters and washing the pearls therefrom. Nearer the camp or settlement itself are the police court, the jail, the bank, the post and telegraph offices, the auction room, the hospital and the cemetery—all to endure through a strenuous six weeks of toil and labor, of money-getting and gambling, and then the inhabitants “fold their tents like the Arabs, and silently steal away,” leaving the debris to the shore-birds and the jackals.