f the camp lockup.

And what might happen if the divers, through their ringleaders, objected
to surrendering to the Ceylon government the demanded "rake-off" of two
thirds the oysters rescued from the sea by their efforts, in the event
of these courageous fellows being assured that all the law in the world
on the subject says that all the sea and all therein contained, beyond
the distance of three nautical miles from shore, belongs to the
universe! But the Manar diver knows naught of the three-mile law,
presumably.

Does the fishery pay? Tremendously, so far as facts upon which to base
an answer are obtainable. The government treasury is sometimes
enormously expanded as a result of the enterprise. In 1905, the most
prosperous of all Manar fisheries, the government sold its fifty million
oysters for two and one half million rupees, and at least $600,000 of
this was profit. Years ago, it is true, there were several fisheries
producing for the treasury nothing but deficits. Nobody ever knows what
reward visits the purchasers of oysters, for it is their habit to spread
the report of non-success and disappointment. But the buyers and
speculators come each year in larger numbers, with augmented credits,
and they pay in competition with their kind a larger price for the
oysters. The conclusion is, therefore, that they find the business
profitable.

Even rumors of luck and profit would bring more speculators and rising
prices at the auction sales, manifestly. Reports of fortunate strikes at
Marichchikkaddi may more frequently be heard in India than in Ceylon,
let it be said; and it is the gilded grandees of Hind--princes,
maharajahs and rajahs--rather than the queens of Western society, who
become possessors of the trove of Manar.

No Colombo merchant or magnate, or man or woman of the official set, is
superior to tempting fortune by buying a few thousand oysters freshly
landed from Marichchikkaddi. And the interminable question of caste,
banning many things to Cingalese and Tamil, inhibits not the right to
gamble upon the contents of a sackful of bivalves. If the fishery be
successful, all Ceylon teems with stories of lucky finds, and
habitations ranging from the roadside hut to the aristocratic bungalow
in the Cinnamon Gardens are pointed to as having been gained by a
productive deal in oysters. A favorite tale is that of the poor
horse-tender, who, buying a few cents' worth of oysters, found the
record pearl of the year