388 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
and in eating them felt the pearl between his teeth. Not having been injured by fire or smoke, it 
retained its beautiful whiteness, and was so large and perfect in its form that several Spaniards, who 
pretended to he skilled in those matters, declared it would be worth 400 ducats. The soldier would 
have given it to the governor to present to his wife, Dona Isabel de Bobadilla, hut De Soto declined 
the generous ofFer, advising him to preserve it until he should arrive at Havana, when he could pur- 
chase horses and other necessaries with it; moreover, as a reward for his liberality, De Soto insisted 
upon paying the fifth of the value due the Crown. 1 
During tlie course of the weary march of the expedition through the mountains 
of upper Georgia, the following circumstance is related by the same historian: 
A foot-soldier, calling to a horseman who was his friend, drew forth from his wallet a linen bag in 
which were 6 pounds of pearls, probably filched from one of the Indian sepulchers. These he offered 
as a gift to his comrade, being heartily tired of carrying them on his back, though he had a pair of 
broad shoulders capable of bearing the burden of a mule. The horseman refused to accept so thought- 
less an offer. “ Keep them yourself,” said he, “you have most need of them. The governor intends 
shortly to send messengers to Havana, when you can forward these presents and have them sold, and 
obtain three or four horses with the proceeds, so that you need no longer go on foot.” Juan Terron 
was piqued at having his offer refused. “Well,” said he, “if you will not have them, I swear I will 
not carry them, and they shall remain here.” So saying, he untied the bag, and whirling it around as 
if he were sowing seed, scattered the pearls in all directions among the thickets and herbage. Then 
putting up his bag in his wallet, as if it was more valuable than the pearls, he marched on, leaving 
his comrades and other bystanders astonished at his folly. The soldiers made a hasty search for the 
scattered pearls and recovered thirty of them. When they beheld their great size and beauty, none 
of them being bored or discolored, they lamented that so many of them had been lost, for the whole 
would have sold in Spain for more than 6,000 ducats. This egregious folly gave rise to a common 
proverb in the army, “There are no pearls for Juan Terron.” The poor fellow himself became an 
object of constant jest and ridicule, until at last, made sensible of his absurd conduct, he implored 
them never to banter him further on the subject. 2 
Fontaneda states that at the place where Lucas Yasquez went seed pearls were 
found in certain conchs, and that between Havalachi and Olagale is a river called by 
the Indians Guasacaesqui, which means, in the Spanish language, Eio de Oanas 
(river of canes), which is an arm of the sea; and along the adjacent coast pearls are 
procured from certain oysters and conchs. These are carried to all the provinces and 
villages of Florida, but principally to Tocobaja, the nearest town. The Indians of the 
town of Abalachi asserted that the Spaniards hanged their cacique because he would 
not give them a string of large pearls which he wore around his neck, the middle 
pearl of which was as big as the egg of a turtle dove. Eibault frequently alludes 
to the possession of pearls by the natives of Florida, and on one occasion saw the 
goodliest man of a company of Indians with a collar of gold and silver about his neck, 
from which depended a pearl “as large as an acorn, at the least .” 3 A present of 
pearls from the cacique to the conquerors was an earnest token of consideration and 
the most acceptable pledge of friendship that he could offer. 
According to Albert .T. Pickett, the oyster alluded to by Garcilasso was identical 
with the mussel so common in all the rivers of Alabama He says: 
Heaps of mussel shells are now to be seen on our river banks wherever Indians used to live. 
They were much used by the ancient Indians for some purpose, and old warriors have informed me 
that their ancestors once used the shells to temper the clay with which they made their vessels. But 
as thousands of the shells lie banked up, some deep in the ground, we may also suppose that the 
“The foregoing is taken from Theodore Irving's Conquest of Florida under Hernando DeSoto 
(London, 1835), vol. 2, p. 14, and is from Pierre Richelet’s translation, made in 1831. De la Vega’s 
entire work, translated from the same source, appears in the History of Hernando DeSoto and Florida, 
by Barnard Shipp (Philadelphia, 1881). 
2 Conquest of Florida under Hernando DeSoto, by Theodore Irving (London, 1835), vol. 2, p. 7. 
3 The Whole and True Discovery of Terra Florida, by Thomas Hackett (London, 1563). 
