XXViil Introduction. 
concerning pearls proves quite conclusively that they share 
all the virtues of cowries. This provides the answer to 
the questions which the distinguished Dutch scholar con- 
fessed his “incompetency to solve.” 
In attempting to form some conception of the mode 
of the easterly spread of these cultural developments 
which originated in the Eastern Mediterranean and the 
Red Sea it is important to remember that it was the 
pearl-fishers themselves who played the chief part in the 
wanderings. The obtrusive role played in India by all 
the elements of the cult of shells ; the conception of the 
Naga kings’ home at the bottom of the sea; the stories 
of dragons guarding ‘the treasure houses rich in gold, 
pearls and precious stones; the pearls which are found 
under the dragon’s tongue, or in the heads of serpents and 
elephants; and the sanctity of shell trumpets, their use 
in religious ceremonial, and the reverence for and adora- 
tion of them as the attribute of some deity (Vishnu ; and 
in the Mediterranean, Triton, Neptune and Venus) or 
even as its dwelling or its parent—all these facts are so 
many testimonies of the intimacy of the connexions 
which have linked these beliefs concerning shells with the 
deepest emotions and the most earnest, strivings of the 
human spirit for assurance and consolation. 
G. ELLIor SMITH. 
