The pearling operations are financed mostly by Indian _bunnias_, or traders, principally from Bombay, who furnish capital for equipment, supplies of food, etc., and who purchase the pearls in gross lots. These men bear very hard on the fishermen, furnishing the supplies and buying the pearls almost at their own prices; and the poor divers who explore the depths and secure the pearls derive from their exertions little more than the crudest necessaries of life, and are usually in debt to the traders. The actual fishing operations are carried on mainly by the maritime tribes of Hasa and Oman, including those on the Pirate Coast. The inhabitants of the Bahrein Islands and the adjacent shores have been devoted to pearling from time immemorial; but the Wahabis of the Pirate Coast—the _Ichthyophagi_ of Ptolemy’s time—have more recently, under the persuasive influence of British gunboats and magazine-rifles, substituted pearling for their two-century inherited life of fanatical piracy. Referring to these people in his quaint sketches of Persia eighty years ago, Sir John Malcolm wrote: “Their occupation is piracy, and their delight murder, and to make it worse they give you the most pious reasons for every villainy they commit. They abide by the letter of the sacred volume, rejecting all commentaries and traditions. If you are their captive and offer all to save your life, they say, “No! It is written in the Koran that it is not lawful to plunder the living; but we are not prohibited from stripping the dead. So saying they knock you on the head.”[101] Most of the Wahabi pearlers congregate in the mat-hut settlements of Dobai, Abu Thubi, and Ras-el-Kheima, located at the mouths of creeks which form fairly good harbors for the small boats. The Batina coast also furnishes some pearl fishermen, these coming principally from Fujaira, Shenas, Sohar, Suaik, and Sib.