Notice is hereby given that a pearl fishery will take place at Veerapandianpatanam on or about the 12th March, 1900. 1. The bank to be fished is the Theradipulipudithapar, estimated to employ 100 boats for twenty days with average loads of 7,000 oysters per day. 2. It is therefore recommended that such boat owners and divers as may wish to be employed shall be at Tuticorin on or before the 1st of March next and anchor their boats abreast of the government flagstaff; the first day’s fishing will take place on the 12th of March, weather permitting. 3. The fishery will be conducted on account of Government, and the oysters put up for sale in such lots as may be deemed expedient. 4. The arrangements of the fishery will be the same as have been usual on similar occasions. [Illustration: PEARLS PRESENTED BY THE IMAM OF MUSCAT TO PRESIDENT VAN BUREN Now in the United States National Museum, Washington, D. C. ] 5. Payments to be made in ready money in rupees or in Government of India notes. Checks on the Bank of Madras or Bank Agencies will be received on letters of credit being produced to warrant the drawing of such checks. 6. All particulars can be obtained on application to the Superintendent of Pearl Fisheries, Tuticorin. Sd/—J. P. BEDFORD, _Collector_. Tinnevelly Collector’s Office, 16th November 1899. On the long sweep of desolate shore at a place convenient to the reefs, a temporary camp is erected, just as is done on the Ceylon coast. However, this camp is not nearly so large, only about one fourth or one fifth the size of that on the eastern side of the gulf. It resembles the larger one in the quarters for divers and merchants, the bazaars, the bungalows for the officials, the hospital, the sale and washing inclosures, etc.; in addition to these is the temporary Roman Catholic chapel. The divers are mainly of the Parawa caste from Tuticorin, Pinnacoil, Pamban, etc. on the Madras coast. Although influenced by many Hindu superstitions, they are nominally Roman Catholics, as evidenced by the scapulars suspended from the neck, their ancestors having been converted and baptized through the zealous work of that prince of missionaries, St. Francis Xavier, in the sixteenth century. Even yet a chapel at Pinnacoil is held in special reverence by these people as a place where the saintly father preached. Professor Hornell writes that the present hereditary head of this caste is Don Gabriel de Croos Lazarus Motha Vaz, known officially as the Jati Talaiva More, or Jati Talaivan. He resides at Tuticorin, and is largely the intermediary between the government and the Parawa fishermen.