CHAPTER XIV. 



River-Pearls; British and Foreign. 



She meets with Conway first, vvhich lyeth next at hand 

 Whose precious orient Pearle that breedeth in her sand, 

 Above the other floods of Britaine doth her grace." 



— Drayton'' s Polyolbion. 



English Pearls. 



T seems proved beyond doubt that 

 Pearl-fishing in the rivers of Britain 

 was an established industry long before 

 the Roman Conquest. According to the historian, 

 Suetonius, who wrote the lives of the Caesars in 

 the early part of the second century, one of the 

 inducements for undertaking the expedition against 

 Britain, under the "divine Julius," was to obtain 



