692 



A HISTORY OF 



in America and Asia ; but as pearls bear a 

 worse price than formerly, those of America 

 are in a great measure discontinued. The 

 most famous of all the Asiatic fisheries is in 

 the Persian Gulf, near the Isle of Bahren. 

 There is another between the coast of Madura 

 and the Island of Ceylon ; and there was a 

 third on the coasts of Japan: but as these 

 noble islanders have a contempt for jewels, 

 and an abhorrence for such Europeans as 

 come in pursuit of them, that fishery, which 

 is thought to be the most valuable of all others, 

 is discontinued. The diving business is now 

 carried on only in those countries where the 

 wretchedness of one part of mankind goes to 

 support the magnificence of the other. 



The chief fishery, as was said, is carried 

 on in the Persian Gulf, and the most valuable 

 pearls are brought from thence. The value 

 of these jewels increases not only in propor- 

 tion to their size, but also their figure and 

 colour; for some pearls are white, others are 

 yellowish, others of a lead colour; and some 

 affirm they have been found as black as jet. 

 What it is that gives these different tinctures 

 to pearls is not known; Taverner ascribes it 

 to their lying two or three weeks upon shore 

 after the oyster is taken; Reaumur thinks it 

 proceeds from the colour of that part of the 

 fish's body upon which the pearl lies. It is 

 most probable that this colour proceeds, like 

 the spots frequently found on the internal sur- 

 face of the shell itself, from some accident 

 while the pearl is growing 



The begt coloured pearls, and the roundest, 

 are brought from the East; those of America 

 are neither so white nor so exactly oval. All 

 pearls, however, in time become yellow ; they 

 may be considered as an animal substance 

 converted into a stony hardness, and like ivo- 

 ry taking ;\ tincture from the air. They have 

 been even found to decay when in damp or 

 vaulted places,and to moulderintoa substance 

 scarce harder than chalk. When the daugh- 

 ters of Stilicon, who were both betrothed, one 

 after the other, to the emperor Honorius, were 

 buried, much of their finery was also deposit- 

 ed with them, in the same tomb. In this man- 

 ner they remained buried for above eleven 

 hundred years, till the foundations of the 

 church of St. Peter were Hying. Their tomb 

 was tli^n discovered, and all their finery was 



found in tolerable preservation except their 

 pearls, which were converted by time and 

 damps into a chalky powder. 



The wretched people that are destined to 

 fish for pearls, are either Negroes or some of 

 the poorest of the natives of Persia. The in- 

 habitants of this country are divided into ty- 

 rants and slaves. The divers are not only 

 subject to the dangers of the deep, to tem- 

 pests, to suffocation at the bottom, to being 

 devoured by sharks, but from their profession 

 universally labour under a spitting of blood, 

 occasioned by the pressure of air upon their 

 lungs in going down to the bottom. The 

 most robust and healthy young men are cho- 

 srn for this employment, but they seldom sur- 

 vive it above five or six years. Their fibres 

 become rigid ; their eye-balls turn red; and. 

 they usually die consumptive. 



It is amazing how very long 

 seen to continue at the bottom. 



they 

 Some 



are 

 , as 



we are assured, have been known to con- 

 tinue three quarters of an hour under wa- 

 ter without breathing; and to one unused 

 to diving, ten minutes would suffocate the 

 strongest. Whether from some effort the 

 blood bursts the old passage which it had in 

 the fetus, and circulates without going through 

 the lungs, it is not easy to tell; but certain it 

 is that some bodies have been dissected with 

 this canal of communication open, and these 

 extraordinary divers may be internally formed 

 in that manner. 



Be this as it may, no way of life seems so 

 laborious, so dangerous, or so painful. They 

 fish for pearls, or rather the oysters that con- 

 tain them, in boats twenty-eight feet long; 

 and of these there are sometimes three or 

 four hundred at a time, with each seven or 

 eight stones, which serve for anchors. There 

 are from five to eight divers belonging to each, 

 that dive one after another. They are quite 

 nakfd, except that they have a net hanging 

 down from the neck to put their oysters in, 

 and gloves on their hands to defend them 

 while they pick the oysters from the holes in 

 the rocks; for in this manner alone can they 

 be gathered. Every diver is sunk by means 

 of a stone, weighing fifty pounds, tied to the 

 rope by which he descends. He places his 

 foot in a kind of stirrup, and laying hold of 

 the rope with his left hand, with his right lw> 



