Page 27 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

in the bazaar. There was no ‘pearl market*. Business was clone in the
offices or the houses of the merchants or sometimes, in a small way, over
a glass of tea in a coffee shop. Recently, however, one merchant has
opened a shop where pearls and necklaces can be bought over the counter,
which is doubtless profitable for the merchant and convenient for
the purchasers, but devoid of the interest and excitement of lengthy
bargaining.
The only pearls which were sold in the open bazaar were very low-
grade specimens hawked around by bazaar touts,and sold to strangers,
often to ships’ passengers, who were foolish enough to buy them. They
were not a good buy! When I had time to spare, usually on a Friday,
which is a holiday, I used to sit and watch two merchants at work.
Bargaining was a leisurely affair, preceded by rounds of coffee and con­
r 'A
versation. Then, almost reluctantly, the pearls would be produced, in
their little red twill bags, and spread on a piece of the same material, red
being considered the best colour on which to display them. Before
bargaining began the pearls were measured for size by being passed
through a series of little tin sieves with holes of various dimensions and
classed for colour, shape and quality. They were sold by weight and the
bargaining was to decide the price per ‘chow’, which is the local measure­
ment of weight. Often the transaction took place in front of people. If
the two men did not want the price to be known they covered their I
Above: Divers alongside
hands with a cloth and conducted the affair by an elaborate method of :
talking on the fingers, which has been used in Bahrain for centuries. They pearling dhow
tried to explain it to me. Pressure on various fingers and parts of the hand Top right: A diver ready
indicated numerals, but I must confess that I never quite learned how the to submerge
i
system worked.
(
The older men used to get wildly excited over big pearl transactions.
I have seen a merchant leap from the circle of men seated on the floor and
rush to the door, exclaiming, ‘By Allah! I will not offer one more pice
[a small coin] for that lot,’ only to be almost dragged back to the group
by some of his friends, where he went on bargaining for the rest of the
day. A remarkable feature was the complete trust which everyone placed
in everyone else. Pearls worth thousands of pounds were handed from
one man to another, and kept for several weeks, without any form of
receipt, but the men in the business could recognize pearls, once they
had seen them, many years later. A merchant gave two or three pearls to
a broker to sell. Carrying the pearls, tied in a comer of his headcloth, he
went to a shop and soon afterwards found that the headcloth had come
undone and the pearls were lost. The shopkeeper denied having found
48

A dhow in full sail