104 CONCHOLOGIST’S COMPANION. 
accept, enjoining him at the same time to note on 
his tablets, that a poor shoemaker of Castilian race 
had gratuitously resigned without a sigh, Pearls, 
which on the other side of the great waters, were 
anxiously sought after. 
There is so much naiveté in the observation of 
this honest man, that I am confident the little 
digression to which the mention of Araga has una- 
voidably led me, will not displease you. 
But the finest Pearls are, unquestionably, not of 
occidental, but of oriental growth. From the earliest 
periods of authentic history, the Indian seas and 
rivers were celebrated for the production of these 
valuable gems. ‘‘ They are rich,” says a native 
writer, ‘‘with Pearls and Ambergris ; their mountains 
are stored with gold, and precious stones; their gulfs 
inhabited by creatures yielding ivory; and among 
the plants and trees with which they are shaded and 
adorned, are ebony, red-wood, aloes, cloves, and 
sandal, and all other spices and aromatics; parrots 
and peacocks are the birds of the forest; musk and 
civet, the productions of the land.” To these exotic 
regions we must therefore look for the finest Pearls: 
they are brought from the island of Bahrein, or 
Baharem, in the Persian Gulf; from Catisa, on 
the coast of Arabia Felix, and from Ceylon, and 
Japan. 
