100 CONCHOLOGIST’S COMPANION. 
from Charles V. to fish for Pearls along the coast of 
Cumana, was proceeding to exert his prerogative, 
when the colonists sent him back this bold answer : 
** that the Emperor, too liberal of what was not his 
own, had no right to dispose of the oysters, which live 
at the bottom of the sea.” The ill-fated adventurer 
finding himself unable to repay the merchants of 
Seville, who had advanced money for his voyage, 
remained five years at Cubaqua, where he at length 
died insane. Alas! wherever commerce has fixed its 
abode, acts of rapine and injustice invariably succeed. 
The Pearl fishery of Cubaqua diminished rapidly 
towards the end of the sixteenth century, and accord- 
ing to the testimony of Laet, it ceased entirely 
before the year 1683. Two causes operated power- 
fully in producing this effect. A Venetian disco- 
vered the art of imitating Pearls, so as to deceive 
the most accurate observers; and in Italy, the use 
of cut diamonds introduced by Lewis de Bergner, 
decreased the demand for occidental Pearls, and 
consequently rendered the fisheries of South America 
far less lucrative. 
The Pearl-producing “Muscles also gradually de- 
creased in number; not indeed, as popular tradition 
has recorded, because being frightened by the noise of 
oars, they conveyed themselves away, but because the 
vast, and often unnecessary destruction, occasioned 
by the divers, continually impaired their numbers. 
