e number half a hundred, and their eager faces are
directed toward the august official of the government, each probably
praying secretly to his god that undue competition be not inspired to
the extent of excluding bargains. In the throng are chetties. Moor
merchants, and local hawkers, hoping to get a few thousand bivalves at a
price assuring a profit when peddled through the coastwise villages.

"Do these men represent actual capital!" you ask the agent. "They do,
indeed," is the reply, "and collectively they are backed by cash in hand
and satisfactory credits in Ceylon banks of at least a hundred lakhs of
rupees." Forced as you are to accept the statement, you inwardly confess
that they don't look it, for $3,200,000 is a goodly credit anywhere.

In the fading light of day the agent announces that approximately two
million oysters are to be sold, and he invites offers for them by the
thousand--the highest bidder to take as many as he chooses, the
quotation to be effective and apply to others until it is raised by some
one fearing there will not be oysters enough to satisfy the demands of
everybody. It is the principle of supply and demand reduced to
simplicity. The competition to fix the price of the first lot consumes
perhaps a minute. The initial bid was thirty rupees; this was elevated
to thirty-two, and so on until thirty-six was the maximum that could be
induced from the motley assemblage. With his pencil the agent taps the
table, and the mudiliyar says something in Hindustani meaning "sold."
The buyer was an Arab from Bombay, operating for a syndicate of rich
Indians taking a flier in lottery tickets. In a manner almost, lordly he
announces that he will take four hundred thousand oysters. Then a sale
of two thousand follows at an advanced price to a nondescript said to
have come all the way from Mecca; a towering Sikh from the Punjab
secures twenty thousand at a reduced rate, and so on. In ten or twelve
minutes the day's product is disposed of to greedy buyers for the sum of
62,134 good and lawful rupees. A clerk records names of buyers with
expedition, glancing now and then at a document proving their credit,
and in a few minutes issues the requisitions upon the kottu for the
actual oysters that will be honored in the early morning.

The primitive process by which the pearls are extracted from the oysters
is tedious, offensive to the senses, and of a character much too
disagreeable to be associated with the jew