Page 190 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

Customs die slowly. In quite recent times some of the wealthy
old pearl merchants in Bahrain, many of whom were self-made
men who started life as divers, affected an appearance of poverty
and lived in mean little houses. In their youth they had known
that it was unwise to make a display of wealth, which might
attract the attention of rapacious overlords and, in their old age,
they continued to live as they did when they were younger,
although there was no longer any danger of being fleeced. Among
the present generation of Arabs, those who have become rich -
and sometimes those who wish it to appear that they arc prosper­
ous - have no compunction over ostentatious display of wealth.
In these days, this takes the form of larger and more expensive
cars, air-conditioning units, television sets and radios and, in a
smaller way, elaborate cameras which rarely seem to produce
worthwhile pictures. Many of these goods arc bought on the
Hire Purchase system.
Bruce asked the pearl merchant to show his wares, although
normally nobody who was thinking of buying pearls would ex­
amine them by artificial light. ‘He pulled out, from a woman’s
shaped pocket, which hung from his waist under an upper gar­
ment, a dirty coarse bag which he placed on die table.’ The bag
was probably made of red cotton for pearls were always tied up
in bags of this material. ‘Opening it, lie displayed such a sight
of pearls as I had never seen before, more like what is related in
The Arabian Nights.’ The old man poured the pearls into a large
dish, which had been placed on the table, and then began to
grade them by sifting them through a number of little brass
sieves which he had brought with him. In this way, he sorted
the pearls into different sizes, the largest being ‘about the size of
a small horse pea’, and the smallest ones being tiny seed pearls,
which used to be exported to China for making into medicine.
There was another use for seed pearls. Large, fme pearls were
kept in small tins, full of seed pearls which, according to the Arabs,
are the best material in which fme pearls should be kept. The
seed pearls not only preserve the larger ones but, say the Arabs,
improve their lustre. Loch and Walpole wanted to buy some
of the larger pearls, but the pearl merchant was only prepared to
sell the lot, and for this he asked a price which was much more
than they were willing to pay.
Loch’s diary contains a description of the pearl diving, but he
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