52 FISHES OF FANCY. 



water, would raise a tempest* Once, therefore, find the 

 chelonia, and you were Moses and Prospero, or Cassandra 

 and the Witch of Endor, in one. Plutarch (' On Rivers ') 

 says that the sangaris produces the gem called Ballen, " the 

 king," by the Phrygians. Ptolemy Hephaestion, the astro- 

 loger, describes a gem (asterites) found in the belly of a 

 huge fish named Pan, from its resemblance to that god. 

 This, if exposed to the sun, shot forth flames, and was a 

 powerful philtre. Helen used it for her own signet, en- 

 graved with a figure of the Pan fish, and owed to it all her 

 conquests. To these may be added the astrobolos, "the 

 fish-eye," and the " adularia," both of them gems of force in 

 the Black Art, and also, as being gifts of the sea, those 

 shells which, powdered into potions, made love-philtres. 

 And no wonder ! What was the happy shell that held 

 Venus before she was vouchsafed to the earth? What 

 fortunate mollusc lent Amphitrite its pearly home for a 

 chariot ? Yet supreme among all shells must ever remain 

 the rough rind that holds the pearl, the delight of poets, 

 the ambition of women, the favourite of all. 



Pearls were supposed to be sea-dew, which the oyster 

 drank in, and by its own mystic chemistry transformed 

 into gems, and the differences in colour were fancifully 

 attributed to climatic influences. On cloudy nights the 

 oyster secreted dark pearls ; and when the moon shone 

 brightly, " the perles were white, fair, and orient." They 

 were soft till the sun shone on them, and then they 

 hardened. One legend (it is a Moslem one) tells us that 

 devils dived for pearls for Solomon, but devils here means 

 only "jinns"; and it almost needed this interference of a 

 supernatural agency to account for man being the master 

 of such an exquisite possession. 



* ' Gems and Precious Stones ' (King). 





