Identifier: wanderingseastof00penf (find matches)
Title: Wanderings east of Suez in Ceylon, India, China and Japan
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Penfield, Frederic Courtland, 1855-1922
Subjects: East Asia -- Description and travel India -- Description and travel Sri Lanka -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : George Bell and Sons New York : Century co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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knows how few prizes! The student seeking to determine the eighthwonder of the world should not overlook the cityof Marichchikkaddi. Stories of towns rising over-night wherever gold is found, or diamonds discov-ered, or oil struck, have become common to thepoint of triteness. Tales of the uprising of Klon-dike and South African cities, once amazing, fadeto paltriness in the opinion of one who has seenthe teeming city of Marichchikkaddi. In a senseit is a capital, yet it is found in no geography; norailway connects it with the world, yet a dozenlanguages are spoken in its streets. Marichchik-kaddis population numbers no young children,no iDersons too aged to toil, and the four or fivehundred women sojourners merit the right of be-ing present through serving as water-carriers tocamp and fishing fleet. This place with double-mouthful name, almostdefying pronunciation, is the pearl metropolis ofthe universe. Probably there is not a stockedjewel-case that does not contain gems that have 58
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The Lure of the Pearl been filtered through this unique city by the sea.For a dozen reasons it is a wonderful town, andthe foremost of these is that it is the only city ofsize that comes and goes like the tides ebbing andflowing. When a fishery is proclaimed, Marichchikkaddiis only a name—a sand-drifted waste lying be-tween the jungle of the hinterland and the ocean.Yet nine months before forty thousand peopledwelt here under shelter of roofs, and here thestruggle for gain had been prosecuted with anearnestness that would have borne golden fruit inany city in the Western world. There, where liesthe skeleton of a jackal half-buried in sand, an In-dian banker had his habitat and office only a fewmonths before, with a lakh of rupees stacked in aconspicuous place as glittering earnest of hisability to pay well for anything remarkable in theway of a pearl. And beyond, where occurs the riftin the sand, stood the shanty in which venturesomedivers whiled away time and money in trying topitc

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