Page 298 - Records of Bahrain (2)(ii)_Neat

624 Records oj Bahrain

40 ADMINISTRATION REPORT OP TUB PERSIAN GULP POLITICAL RESIDENCY
They arc bought at so much per "chao” down to a certain size
from the divers, when they are then
Four of lhe.*c In most onlinnrj uso
have names, the " Has** *>r bend, 6old en masse at so much per
the " I’.atan" or stomach, tho M Uw,lH " miseal.” There arc 330 chao iu a
or t«H, ami the "Tir-i-Dal" or under miseal,* and the Arab chao is equal to
Thosenrc «Uow,i ,u tlic t>blc. fm;r Hindustani chaos. The best
weights are shaped in agate, which is not so liable to alter as arc those
made of metal. The usual form of sale is by packets, and pearls of a
particular size being chosen out, the value of tho rest of the packet will
be depreciated. A merchant would therefore insist upon a higher price
of pearls so chosen ; in fact for picked and single pearls the purchaser
must be content to pay a fancy price. There arc such a number of con­
siderations that influence the sale of pearls that anything more than an
approximation to the market value cannot be given, and this changes
yearly.
42. In the last 25 years the price of pearls, as has been above said,
The increased value of a "chao” by has increased 50 per cent. The value
alteration of the Gulf standard nwy.1* of every coin in use has also fluctuated
in some inhere the cause of this im­ considerably, and lastly, the weights
pression.—E. C. R.
themselves change in value most
enormously both in relation to Indian weights and in relation to each
other. This uncertainty increases the opportunities of cheating.
After a vain attempt of several days I have had to give up all
It appears that the merchant* them- attempts to understand these fluctuations
sclvci bare to entertain fkilJM book* of every sort, both of weights, coins, and
™’^of Pearls; the Arab merchants
cannot explain them themselves, nor are
the data they tender on all these subjects in accordance. In fact the
conclusion I arrive at is that pearl-dealing cannot be reduced to an
exact science.
43. The last point that must be touched upon is that of the yearly
export and its value, and here we are terribly at fault—partly from the
impossibility of obtaining correct returns from the various rulers and the
Custom Houses, and partly from the fact that a Native merchant's con-
science is not very tender in such a small matter as the declaration of the
value of his merchandize when taking out a bill of lading for present­
ation in India. In point of fact, it is well known that pearls are under­
valued as a matter of course.
Colonel Pelly put down the total export in 1805 at £400,000, or say
40 lakhs, and this has been since accepted as an approximately correct
figure.
In 1850 a report was published on the navigation of the Gulf by
Captain Drueks in which the export of
Bombay &cord«, XXIV of 1856.
pearls from Bahrein alone, in 1824, as
stated by the Company's broker and the Shaikh's Vizier, was put down
at 1,GOO,000 German Crowns or Rupees 32,00,000, or £320,000, of
course the valncs have changed since then, but for comparison these
figures will do.

• SU grain* XnglUK