220 TROPIC DAYS 



touched his master's hand, and with signs of great 

 emotion pointed into the water. The chief looked, and 

 there, seven fathoms below, lay an oyster with an 

 enormous pearl distinctly visible. Without a moment's 

 reflection he plunged in, and, diving with skill and speed, 

 reached the shell before it closed, his fingers being caught 

 between the valves. He quickly rose to the surface, and 

 was helped into the boat by his anxious follower. Upon 

 the oyster being forced open, a pearl, unsurpassed in 

 size and of extraordinary beauty, was revealed. Re- 

 turning to his native village, the chief sold all his smaller 

 pearls, and having redeemed his wife and child, set sail 

 for Manila, where lived an English friend who advanced 

 him money, to whom he said: "Take this pearl, clear 

 off my debt, give me what you like in return. I shall 

 be satisfied." The author adds: "The merchant took 

 the pearl, gave him what he considered its value — at all 

 events enough to make Sulu ring with his generosity — 

 and sent the pearl to China; but what became of it 

 afterwards I could never distincth' trace ; but I learned 

 that a pearl in Bengal called 'The Mermaid' originally 

 came from China, and as the one found in Sulu was said to 

 be shaped like a w"oman's bust, it is probably the same." 



Possibly the golden age of the pearl is passing as the 

 golden age of the reptile has passed, for can it not be 

 imagined that, in those far-back days when oysters 

 attained a length of two feet and better deserved the 

 title of Tridacna (three bites) than the present clams, 

 pearls of corresponding magnificence of size were pro- 

 duced ? Or are robust pearlless oysters to be accepted 

 as the tj^pe of the strong era, and small oj'sters and 

 pearls merely as signs of degeneracy ? The largest of 

 modern pearls measured two inches long by a circum- 

 ference of four inches and weighed eighteen hundred 



