CHAPTER X.

"THE TREASURE OF AN OYSTER."

Sweet names given to Pearls; Barry Cornwall Proctor's lines; Component parts of Pearls; Mother-of-pearl; How Pearls are formed, Sorrows into Gems; Their nucleus; Sir Everard Home and Sir David Brewster; Curious shapes and fancy Jewellery; Pearl Fisheries: Bahrein Island and Bay of Candalchy; Miseries of the Divers; Pearls as Physic; Immense value of recorded Pearls.

Of all beautiful things in the world the pearl is the rarest and most beautiful. Nothing can exceed it, nothing can equal it, although they try very hard in "French" and "Roman" ways, in glassy globules which continually crack, or in round spots of wax, which, instead of adorning, adhere to the neck of beauty, and when old age comes upon it, turn yellow and wrinkled like the skin of a dowager. Nay, nothing can well imitate it, although art has gone somewhat near it. But to a knowing eye one might as well seek to imitate truth, or palm away upon the unwary a copy of true virgin innocence as to imitate a pearl. We know all the answers that the dowagers can make; we know that the imitations are "so cheap," so pretty; we know that certain dowagers—witness Margaret, Duchess Dowager of Lancaster—sell their real pearls and wear cunning imitations; we know that they in vain try to persuade themselves that the false are as good as the true ones; but only look hard at the ornaments, and the duchess is abashed. To test false pearls, one has only to put a true one by them, and the "difference," as advertisers say, "will be at once perceived."

Let us devote this last portion of our book to the history of the pearl. Its very names are pretty. _Looloo_, _Mootoo_, _Mootie_, _Margaritæ_, _Perles_, _Perlii_, _Perlas_, _Pearls_, all sweet, pretty, mouth-rounding names, but worthy to be applied to the lustrous and beautiful spheres which we call pearls. _Principium culmenque omnium, rerum pretii tenent_: "Of all things, pearls," said Pliny, two thousand years ago, "kept the very top, highest, best, and first price." What was true then is true now. There are few things so immortal as good taste. Let us pay something "on account" of our debt to the oyster. Having regarded that placid creditor as an article of food, I now propose to treat him as an assistant to the toilet. And, looking at him in that point of view, here is not a bad instalment of the aforesaid debt, contributed by Barry Cornwall.

"Within the midnight of her hair, Half-hidden in its deepest deeps, A single peerless, priceless pearl (All filmy-eyed) for ever sleeps. Without the diamond's sparkling eyes, The ruby's blushes—there it lies, Modest as the tender dawn, When her purple veil's withdrawn— The flower of gems, a lily cold and pale. Yet, what doth all avail?— All its beauty, all its grace? All the honours of its place? He who pluck'd it from its bed, In the far blue Indian Ocean, Lieth, without life or motion, In his earthy dwelling—dead! All his children, one by one, When they look up to the sun, Curse the toil by which he drew The treasure from its bed of blue."

Costly as pearls are, they are merely the calcareous production of Mollusks. Diamonds have elsewhere been shown to be merely charcoal; the pearl is little else but concentric layers of membrane and carbonate of lime. All Mollusks are instances of that beneficent law of nature, that the hard parts accommodate themselves to the soft. The common naked snail, the mussel, cockle, oyster, garden helix, strombus, and nautilus, elegant or rough, rare or common, each illustrate this grand law. The body of a soft consistence is enclosed in an elastic skin. From this skin calcareous matter is continually exuded. This protects the animal, and forms the shell. Where the waves are rough, and rocks superabundant, then the shell is rough, hard, stony, fit to weather anything; where only smooth water and halcyon days are to be looked for, Nature, which never works in vain, provides but paper sides and an egg-shell boat, such as the little nautilus navigates and tacks and steers in.

Besides forming the rough outside, the calcareous exuvium, the mucus of the oyster, and other mollusks, form that beautiful substance, so smooth and polished, and dyed with rainbow tints and a glorious opalescence, which, be it as common as luxury has made it, still charms the eye. This is the lining of the shell, the mother-of-pearl, nacre. "The inside of the shell," said old Dampier—that old sailor with a poet's mind—"is more glorious even than the pearl itself."

It is glorious; it has the look of the morning, and the tint of the evening sky; the colours of the prism chastened, softened, retained, and made perpetual in it: this is mother-o'-pearl.

To render its bed always soft and cosy, to lie warm, packed as one might at Malvern in wet sheets, seems to be the oyster's pleasure. This singular exuvium, this mucus, not only creates pleasure, but alleviates pain. Some irritating substance, some internal worry and annoyance, it may be a dead embryo, or a grain of sand insinuates itself, and, lo! the creature covers it with this substance to ease off its unkind tooth, and converts it into a pearl.

That is the way they are made, these wondrous gems! And very beautiful is the thought that the most highly prized of gems should be but the effect of a creature to ease off a sorrow. Every one knows Shakspeare's wondrously fine reflection upon the uses of sorrow and adversity, which,

"Like the toad, ugly and venomous, Bears yet a precious jewel in its head."

The precious jewel of the toad, which some critics and commentators have endeavoured to prove its glittering eye, has long been exploded. Our old alchemists believed in the toadstone; we do not. The fable remains in its pristine beauty; but here is one truth equally beautiful, that the adversity of the oyster turns to a jewel so costly and glorious, that monarchs reckon it amongst the records of their houses and conquered provinces. May we ever turn our sorrows and troubles to as good an account; may we ever continue to do so, for assuredly some men do. The best of men are those who are tried by affliction and trouble, or those who have some deep and secret care, which they hide in their hearts, and which makes them wiser and better. Shelley has a theory that poets are made somewhat after the fashion of pearls, or that, at any rate, their poetry is so produced. He sings—

"Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong; They learn in suffering, what they teach in song."

We have very little doubt but that the true poetry from which the world learns anything worth learning is so produced.

There have been other theories as to the production of the pearl, some holding that the interior formation which we state to be a grain of sand, is a dead ovum which the fish attempts to exude. This theory, too, has its supporters.

"If," said Sir Everard Home, "if I can prove that this, the richest jewel in a monarch's crown, which cannot be imitated by any art of man" (he is rather wrong there; it can be imitated, and wonderfully imitated too,) "either in beauty of form or brilliancy of lustre, is the abortive egg of an oyster enveloped in its own nacre, who will not be struck with wonder and astonishment?" Wonder and astonishment are words which scarcely exist now. Science has shown so many wonders that we are hardly astonished at anything; but Sir Everard's assertion admits of proof. A pearl cut in two exhibits the concentric layers like an onion, as may be seen through a strong lens; and in the centre is a round hole, very minute it may be, but wherein the ovum has been deposited.

Sometimes the ovum, or sand, or enclosed substance has attached itself to the shell, and has then been covered with mucus, forming a pearl which cannot be separated from the shell. There are several specimens of such pearls in the British Museum.

The great beauty in pearls is their opalescence, and a lustre which, as we have before observed, however clever the imitation, has never yet been given to artificial pearls. Sir Everard Home supposes that this lustre arises from the highly polished coat of the centre shell, the pearl itself being diaphanous. Sir David Brewster accounts for it by the pearl and mother-of-pearl having a grooved substance on its surface resembling the minute corrugations often seen on substances covered with oil, paint, or varnish. Philosophers are sometimes not very explanatory. Sir David means to say that beneath the immediate polish of the pearl there are certain wavelets and dimples from which the light is reflected. "The direction of the grooves," again to quote Sir David, "is in every case at right angles to the line joining the coloured image; hence, in irregularly formed mother-of-pearl, where the grooves are often circular, and have every possible direction, the coloured images appear irregularly scattered round the ordinary image."

In the regular pearl these are crowded, from its spherical form, into a small space; hence its marvellous appearance of white unformed light, and hence its beauty and value.

To prove the translucency of the pearl, we have only to hold one which is split to a candle, where, by interposing coloured substance or light, we shall have the colour transmitted through the pearl. Curious as is the formation of the pearl, we have yet a cognate substance to it. What we call _bezoar_, and the Hindoos _faduj_, is a concretion of a deepish olive-green colour found in the stomach of goats, dogs, cows, or other animals: the hog bezoar, the bovine bezoar, and the camel bezoar; this last the Hindoos turn into a yellow paint; but the harder substances the Hindoo jewellers polish and thread and use as jewels; so that from the stomach of the lower animals, and from the secretions of a shell-fish, the still grasping, prying, worrying, proud, vain-glorious, busy man gets him an ornament for her whom he most loves, for him whom he most honours.

The question of obtaining pearls and of slaying divers, of feeding sharks with human limbs, of the eye-balls starting and the tympanum of the ear bursting, of the pains, perils, and penalties of the pearl divers, must be touched incidentally in any true account of this precious gem.

Vanity demands the aid of Cruelty, and for her gratification human sacrifices are still made.

In the Persian Gulf, at Ceylon, and in the Red Sea, the early sources of the Greeks and Romans, we yet find our supply. Pearls are also found in the Indian Ocean along the Coromandel coast and elsewhere; as also in the Gulf of California; but the two grand headquarters are in Bahrein Island, in the Persian Gulf, and in the Bay of Condalchy, in the Gulf of Manaar, off the Island of Ceylon.

The fishery at Ceylon is a monopoly of the British Government, but, like many Government monopolies, it is said to cost a great deal more than it produces. In 1804 Government leased it for £120,000 per annum; in 1828 it only yielded £28,000.[5] It is a desert and barren spot; no one can fall in love with it; sands and coral reefs are not picturesque; yet, in its season, it attracts more to its shores than one of our best watering-places. Divers, merchants, Arab-hawkers, drillers, jewellers, and talkers; fish-sellers, butchers, boat-caulkers, and Hindoo Robinsons and Walkers are all found there. The period is limited to six weeks, or two months at most, from February to April; and whilst they are making money these people are rather eager, look you. But the fishers themselves, victims of cruelty as they are, are also victims to their own superstition and ignorance. A Hindoo or Parsee blesses the water to drive away the sharks; a diver may be frightened or ill, and the holidays are so numerous, that the actual work-days amount only to thirty in the season.

The boats assembled sail at ten at night, a signal gun being then let off. They then set sail, reach the banks before daybreak, and at sunrise the divers begin to take their "headers." They continue at this work till noon, when a breeze starting up, they return. The cargoes are taken out before the night sets in, and the divers are refreshed.

Each boat carries twenty men—ten rowers and ten divers—besides a chief, or pilot. The divers work five at a time alternately, leaving the others time to recruit. To go down quickly they use a large stone of red granite, which they catch hold of with their foot. Each diver holds a net-work bag in his right hand, closes his nostrils with his left, or with a piece of bent horn, and descends to the bottom. There he darts about him as quickly as he can, picking up with toes and fingers, and putting the oysters into his net-work bag. When this is full, or he is exhausted, he pulls the rope, and is drawn, leaving the stone to be pulled up after him. When the oysters are very plentiful, the diver may bring up one hundred and fifty at a dip.

After this violent exertion, blood flows from nose, ears, and eyes. The divers cannot exceed generally one minute's immersion. One and a half, and even two, have been reached by extraordinary efforts. Those who can endure four and five minutes are spoken of. One also we are told of—an apocryphal fellow, we should think—who coming in 1797 from Arjango, stayed under water six minutes.

The divers live not to a great age. Heart diseases, surfeits, sores, blood-shot eyes, staggering limbs, and bent backs—these are part of their wages. Sometimes they die on reaching the surface, suddenly, as if struck by a shot.

At Bahrein, the annual amount produced by the pearl fishery may be reckoned at from £200,000 to £240,000; add to this purchases made by the merchants of Abootabee, and we have £360,000 to include the whole pearl trade of the Gulf, since, through their agents at Bahrein, merchants from Constantinople, Bagdad, Alexandria, Timbuctoo, New York, Calcutta, Paris, St. Petersburg, Holy Moscowa, or London, make their purchases.

"But," says our credible informant, "I have not put down the sum at _one-sixth_ of that told me by the native merchants." But even then an enormous amount is that, to be used in mere ornament, and in one article only.

Well, not exactly ornament. "In Eastern lands," says Mr. Thomas Moore, "they talk in flowers." Very flowery certainly is their talk. They also, good easy people, take pearls for physic—not for dentifrice—Easterns always having white teeth, apparently, so far as I have been able to judge, without the trouble of cleaning them—but as a regular dose. They call it _majoon_; it is an electuary, and myriads of small seed pearls are ground to impalpable powder to make it. As for the adulteration in this article, doubtless to be found, I say nothing. The simple lime from the inside of the shell would be just as white and just as good. Common magnesia would have the same effect; but, good sirs, if an old Emir, or rich Bonze, wishes to pay an enormous price for something to swallow to comfort his good old inside, why not? Do not let us brag too much: from the time of old Gower, doctor of physic, to Dr. Cheyne, we have, sir, swallowed everything, from toads' brains to the filings of a murderer's irons, as very proper physic.

The Bahrein fishery-boats amount to 1500, and the trade is in the hands of merchants who possess much capital. This they lend out at cent. per cent.; they buy up, and they beat down; they juggle, cheat, rig the market, rob in a legal way a whole boat's crew, grow enormously rich, and preach morality.

Nor do they forget superstition. In the chief boat, when they fish, sits a jolly old cheat, a magician, called the binder of sharks, who waves about his skinny hands, jumps, howls, incants, and otherwise exerts his cabalistic powers, and will not allow the divers, nor are they willing, to descend till he declares the moment propitious. To add some weight to their devotions, they debar themselves of food or drink during this _Mumbo-Jumbo_ play, but afterwards a species of toddy makes them like "Roger the Monk,"—"excessively drunk."

The true shape of the pearl should be a perfect sphere. In India, and elsewhere, those of the largest size find the readiest sale, and realize immense prices. The very finest pearls are sent to Europe, and of these the very finest of the fine are sent to London and Paris. Thence the great people of the land procure their choice specimens. The late Emperor of Russia used to purchase for his wife—of whom he was exceedingly fond, and who has lately joined him in that bourne from which neither traveller, emperor, king, nor beggar ever returns—the very finest pearl he could procure: a virgin pearl and a perfect sphere was what he sought, for he would not have any that had been worn by others. After five-and-twenty years' search, he presented to the Empress such a necklace as had never been seen before.

Immense prices have been given and are still given for pearls. Julius Cæsar, in love with the mother of Marcus Brutus, is said to have presented her with a pearl worth £48,417 10_s._, which we can believe or not, according to our natures. Cleopatra, as all the world has read, drank, dissolved in vinegar, a pearl which cost £80,729 of our money, and, as we know from Shakspeare, Marc Antony sent to her "a treasure of an oyster" of wondrous beauty. Clodius, the glutton (surely a gourmet, not a gourmand), swallowed one worth £8072 18_s._ One of the modern pearls was bought by Tavernier at Catifa, and sold by him to the Shah of Persia for £110,000; another was obtained by Philip II. of Spain, off the Columbian coast, which weighed 250 carats, and was valued at 14,400 ducats, which is equal to about £13,996.

Pliny, the naturalist, tells us of a pearl which was valued at £80,000 sterling. That which Philip II. had was nearly as large as a pigeon's egg. Pliny's was somewhat smaller. But size is not alone the test of value. Shape and form must be taken into consideration. Some pearls are very curiously misshapen, and of so large a size that it would seem a wonder how the fish could exist with them in the shell. These misshapen pearls are generally of an uneven surface and lustre, and are prized by the Eastern jewellers very much, and were also sought after by the fanciful goldsmiths and enamellers of the _cinque-cento_ period, when they were set into sword-hilts, or formed into toys or gems, just as the fancy and shape might suggest. We have seen one large long pearl mounted by a Spanish jeweller into the order of the golden fleece, the legs and head of the sheep being of gold, the body formed by the pearl. Amongst the loot taken at Lucknow was a set of miniature animals and birds, all formed of large but misshapen pearls, the tails, heads, eyes, &c., of the creatures being of gold set with diamonds. Any one who has seen much mediæval work in the precious metals, or the illuminated pages of early printed books on vellum, of Italian execution, will be able to recall many curious instances of this quaint kind of _vertu_.

The largest pearl of which we have heard was one spoken of by Böethius, the size of a muscadine pear. It was named the _Incomparable_, and weighed thirty carats or five pennyweights. Tavernier's pearl would, if engraved, well illustrate the rocky, eccentric, and oft-times triangular shapes in which these gems are found. They often adhere to the shell, and cannot be removed without the saw. After such an operation they would merely rank as half pearls, which, by the way, are those generally mounted in jewellery and rings.

Did our scope allow of a description of the manufacture from fish scales of the substitute for the real pearl, the marvellously clever imitation which is worn, wittingly, by many a gracious lady, and unwittingly by many another, we should have another interesting story to tell. But these imitations may be considered as frauds upon our placid creditor the oyster—or, shall we say, compositions with him, and beneath the notice of, debtors who are trying to behave honestly to a bivalve.

Properly speaking, however, the Pearl oyster (_Avicula margaritacea_), from which the greater number of pearls, and the largest quantity of mother-of-pearl is obtained, is not an oyster strictly so called, but belongs to an allied genus. The pearl oyster is an oval-pointed recurved-edged mussel; the lower shell with a hood-shaped hollow point, the upper one like a cover, leafy and pearly, of a rosy purple-white colour. The common oyster (_Ostrea edulis_), on the contrary, has a round-oval mussel-shell, thin towards the edges, with tiled leaves adhering to one another, the upper shell quite flat. Some variety exists in these, some having elongated edges, owing to the difference of age.

* * * * *

Gentle reader! when Queen Mary, whom men call "Bloody Mary," died, and Queen Elizabeth, Protestant Elizabeth, came to the throne, Osorius, the good Bishop of Arcoburge, a staunch bishop of the Church of Rome, sent her a sugared pill, which he hoped would at once convert the queen, and drive out the "obnoxious heresy" from the land. That all might read it, he himself wrote it in Latin: "_Epistola ad Clarissimam Principam Elizabetham_;" had it translated into French, which honest old Strype says "gave great offence," as "_une bien longue_ _et docte Epistre à Madame Elizabeth, Royne d' Angleterre_;" and to gild the nasty thing, called it, in English, "A Perle for a Prince;" but all the ingenuity of quackery could not disguise the drastic pill, and neither the queen nor her lieges would swallow it. I have seen all three books in the Grenville Library in the British Museum, and at once pronounce them nothing but "mock" pearls. Now, I have extracted for your delectation a real pearl out of the Oyster, in the shape of this little book. It is Christmas-tide. Cherish it for those best of pearls, kindly thoughts and loving remembrances, which the Oyster calls into being when the Holly and the Mistletoe deck our walls.

Footnote 5:

The pearl fishery at Ceylon, however, has been very profitable during the present year, the yield being sometimes worth from 10,000 dollars to 30,000 dollars per day. An attempt is being made to re-establish the pearl fishery in the Gulf of California. Some very fine pearls were found there nearly a century ago.

LONDON: WILLIAM STEVENS, PRINTER, BELL YARD, TEMPLE BAR.

FOOTNOTES:

Transcriber's Note

The original spelling and punctuation has been retained.

Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.

Italicized words and phrases in the text version are presented by surrounding the text with underscores.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Oyster, by Eustace Clare Grenville Murray