By this time, Maynard has claimed, the south Indian coastal areas around Kanyakumari were "the greatest pearl fishery in the world", and that the Hindu people who fished for oysters there " ... were known as the Paravas, a caste sufficiently low, although not of the very lowest." He says that the Hindus were essentially peaceful in nature and temperamentally unsuited to counter physical threat, although Frykenberg has described them as a "... proud and venturesome seafaring folk engaged in fishing, pearl diving, trading, and piracy." Hastings has pointed out that the piracy (and some smuggling) was only an occasional activity and that their more normal occupations demanded courage, strength and stamina, which made them "hardened adventurers".