PEARLS AND MOTHER-OF-PEARL. 393 



strings of enormous pearls, and of " fine pearls " no less than sixty 

 bushels ! — accumulated during campaigns in Europe, Asia and 

 Africa. 



Shah Jehan, greatest of Mogul sovereigns after Timour, col- 

 lected the wealth of India about him at Delhi, including the 

 world-famous diamond known ever since as the Great Mogul. 

 His was the famous peacock throne, the spread tails of the pea- 

 cocks formed of precious stones to emulate the colors of the liv- 

 ing bird, the whole valued at nearly thirty-five million dollars. 

 Its canopy was fringed with pearls. His, too, was the Taj Mahal,^ 

 the most marvelous tomb ever built, on which twenty thousand 

 men worked for more than twenty years. And this Shah Jehan 

 loved to wear round his neck priceless strings of immense pearls. 



The Greeks and Romans rivaled the Orientals in their appre- 

 ciation of pearls. When Alexander and his eighty companions 

 wedded their beautiful Persian brides at the most famous mar- 

 riage feast of history, the pearls of the Persian Gulf were the 

 favorite jewels — as they are with brides in this closing decade of 

 the nineteenth century. The Romans sent caravans on year- 

 long journeys to Ceylon for pearls. And there is evidence that 

 Julius Csesar really invaded Britain for the sake of expected 

 plunder in pearls. That he was not disappointed is shown by 

 the record that on his return he dedicated to the Venus Genetrix 

 a breastplate of the British gems. 



The ancients seem to have had no conception of the real origin 

 of pearls. Even in the days of the Romans they had not ad- 

 vanced beyond the early myths of creation by Vishnu, of angels' 

 tears dropped out of heaven into the gaping mouths of mussels, 

 or the diverse theory that they were as mystically congealed from 

 dewdrops, which with equal mystery, after their ethereal descent, 

 dropped through fathoms of water without commingling — unless, 

 indeed, the shellfish were supposed to come to the surface to re- 

 ceive them. Pliny gravely asserts that " pearls are great or small, 

 better or worse, according to the quantity and quality of the dew 

 they have received. For, if the dew were pure and clear that 

 went into them, then are the pearls fair and orient. Cloudy 

 weather spoils their color, lightning stops their growth, and thun- 

 der makes the shellfish eject hollow husks or bubbles " in place of 

 pearls. 



Ceylon and the Persian Gulf, which were the chief sources of 

 fine pearls back before the dawn of the Christian era, have re- 

 tained their supremacy through twenty centuries, though profit- 

 able pearling grounds are now worked in Eastern waters off New 

 Guinea and the northern Australian coasts, in the Sulu Archi- 

 pelago, off Japan, and among the Polynesian islands. In minor 

 quantity, and perhaps quality, pearls are gathered from Western 



