CHAPTER XVII. 



OYSTERS AND PEARLS. 



"Parum fcilicet fuerat in gulas condi maria, nifi manibus, 

 auribus, capite, totoque corpore a fceminis juxta virifque gefta- 

 rentur." (PLINY, Nat. Hift., ix. 35.) 



IGHLY prized as pearls have been 

 whenever they could be procured, 

 the Greeks feem to have known 

 little or nothing of them ; and yet 

 the Phoenicians, thofe mafter-mariners of antiquity, 

 might well be fuppofed to have trafficked in 

 them, when they 



" Saw the merry Grecian coafler come, 



Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine, 

 Green burfting figs, and tunnies fleeped in brine, 

 And knew the intruders on their ancient home." 



It might have been thought, too, that Homer 

 would have hung a carcanet of pearls round 

 Helen's neck, or powdered the braided trefTes of 

 Circe and Calypfo with them, when he wiihed to 

 enhance their beauty. Until the firft century 

 before Chrift they were not abundant, or objects 



