The headquarters for the pearling fleet are at Bahrein Island, the largest of the insular group bearing the same name, the islets of Moharrek, Sitrah, and Nissan completing the group. This is the early home of Chaldean civilization, and one of the traditional sources of the Phenicians, and whence came that fish-god who—according to the Babylonian myth—bore the ark over the deluge. This island, the center of the greatest pearl fishery in the world, is half way down on the southern side of the Persian Gulf, and twenty miles from the mainland of “Araby the blest.” It is about twenty-eight miles in length, and ten in width at the widest part. The population approximates 60,000, all Moslems, except about 100 Banyan traders from Sindh, India. The northern half of the island is described as of great beauty, being a garden of pomegranate, lemon, citron, and quince-trees, and especially the magnificent date-palms, with numerous springs furnishing an abundance of excellent fresh water. The principal settlement, Manama, with about 10,000 inhabitants, is poorly built, the houses consisting mostly of huts of mats and palm leaves; yet it presents a better appearance than any other settlement along this coast. The one great industry, and the center of all interest throughout this region, is the pearl fishery. The present conditions are precisely as Palgrave wrote in 1863: “It is from the sea, not from the land, that the natives subsist; and it is also mainly on the sea that they dwell, passing amid its waters the one half of the year in search of pearls, the other half in fishery or trade. Hence their real homes are the countless boats which stud the placid pool, or stand drawn up in long black lines on the shore, while little care is taken to ornament their land houses, the abodes of their wives and children at most, and the unsightly strong boxes of their treasures. ‘We are all, from the highest to the lowest, slaves of one master—Pearl,’ said Mohammed bin Thanee to me one evening; nor was the expression out of place. All thought, all conversation, all employment, turns on that one subject; everything else is merely by-game, and below even secondary consideration.”[102] [Illustration: ARAB PEARL-DIVERS AT WORK IN THE PERSIAN GULF ]