214 TROPIC DAYS 



but have to be sought for by passing the "meat" through 

 the fingers. On this occasion all previous experience 

 had been set at naught, so that it might seem that the 

 prize had been presented by the animal as its perfect 

 and most opulent work. 



Strange Pearls. 



The engaging theory of the ancients that pearls 

 were made of glutinous dewdrops condensed by the 

 sun's heat does not take into account the fact that 

 some of the rarest, though not the most valuable, have 

 assumed contrary and fantastic shape. Fish, crabs, 

 and marine insects have proved a common origin of 

 pearly developments while they have been regarded 

 by some as almost miraculous conceptions on the part 

 of the afflicted mollusc. 



Hamed of Jeddah, the stubby Arab who deals in 

 fish and oysters, and who professes to have groped 

 over in his youth a considerable extent of the Red Sea 

 for coral and pearls, relates many experiences in which 

 the popular gem takes pride of place. Oriental that 

 he is, he loves exaggeration, and while lending a pro- 

 pitious ear to the stories in which he enshrines his 

 prime, when he could dive deep and long, and when 

 the precious red coral was "thick" and every shell con- 

 tained a pearl, it is discreet to disregard obvious breaks 

 and bulges along the prim path of truth. The very 

 crudeness of his embellishments invests with kind of 

 comic relief some of his fables, which end invariably 

 with insipid uniformity. All the pearls which have 

 slipped through Hamed 's rough hands have been valued 

 at five hundred pounds, never more or less. It is not 

 for me to rub the gilt off the innocent inventions of 

 the emotional Arab, but merely to relate one of his 



