That Of Constantinople, Where The Palaeologi Wore Garments Covered With Strings Of Pearls; And That Of Grenada, The Residence Of The Moorish Kings, Who Displayed At Their Court All The Luxury Of The East.

The pearls of the East were preferred to those of the West; but the number of the latter which circulated in commerce was nevertheless considerable at the period immediately following the discovery of America.

In Italy as well as in Spain, the islet of Cubagua became the object of numerous mercantile speculations.

Benzoni* relates the adventure of one Luigi Lampagnano, to whom Charles the Fifth granted the privilege of proceeding with five caravels to the coasts of Cumana to fish for pearls. (* La Hist. del Mondo Nuovo page 34. Luigi Lampagnano, a relation of the assassin of the Duke of Milan, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, could not pay the merchants of Seville who had advanced the money for his voyage; he remained five years at Cubagua, and died in a fit of insanity.) The colonists sent him back with this bold message: "That the emperor was too liberal of what was not his own, and that he had no right to dispose of the oysters which live at the bottom of the sea."

The pearl fishery diminished rapidly about the end of the sixteenth century; and, according to Laet, it had long ceased in 1633.* (* "Insularum Cubaguae et Coches quondam magna fuit dignitas, quum Unionum captura floreret: nunc, illa deficiente, obscura admodum fama." Laet Nova Orbis page 669. This accurate compiler, speaking of Punta Araya, adds, this country is so forgotten, "ut vix ulla Americae meridionalis pars hodie obscurior sit.") The industry of the Venetians, who imitated fine pearls with great exactness, and the frequent use of cut diamonds,* rendered the fisheries of Cubagua less lucrative. (* The cutting of diamonds was invented by Lewis de Berquen, in 1456, but the art became common only in the following century.) At the same time, the oysters which yielded the pearls became scarcer, not, because, according to a popular tradition, they were frightened by the sound of the oars, and removed elsewhere; but because their propagation had been impeded by the imprudent destruction of the shells by thousands. The pearl-bearing oyster is of a more delicate nature than most of the other acephalous mollusca. At the island of Ceylon, where, in the bay of Condeatchy, the fishery employs six hundred divers, and where the annual produce is more than half a million of piastres, it has vainly been attempted to transplant the oysters to other parts of the coast. The government permits fishing there only during a single month; while at Cubagua the bank of shells was fished at all seasons. To form an idea of the destruction of the species caused by the divers, we must remember that a boat sometimes collects, in two or three weeks, more than thirty-five thousand oysters. The animal lives but nine or ten years; and it is only in its fourth year that the pearls begin to show themselves. In ten thousand shells there is often not a single pearl of value. Tradition records that on the bank of Margareta the fishermen opened the shells one by one: in the island of Ceylon the animals are thrown into heaps to rot in the air; and to separate the pearls which are not attached to the shell, the animal pulp is washed, as miners wash the sand which contains grains of gold, tin, or diamonds.

At present Spanish America furnishes no other pearls for trade than those of the gulf of Panama, and the mouth of the Rio de la Hacha. On the shoals which surround Cubagua, Coche, and the island of Margareta, the fishery is as much neglected as on the coasts of California.* (* I am astonished at never having heard, in the course of my travels, of pearls found in the fresh-water shells of South America, though several species of the Unio genus abound in the rivers of Peru.) It is believed at Cumana, that the pearl-oyster has greatly multiplied after two centuries of repose; and in 1812, some new attempts were made at Margareta for the fishing of pearls. It has been asked, why the pearls found at present in shells which become entangled in the fishermen's nets are so small, and have so little brilliancy,* whilst, on the Spaniards' arrival, they were extremely beautiful, though the Indians doubtless had not taken the trouble of diving to collect them. (* The inhabitants of Araya sometimes sell these small pearls to the retail dealers of Cumana. The ordinary price is one piastre per dozen.) The problem is so much the more difficult to solve, as we know not whether earthquakes may have altered the nature of the bottom of the sea, or whether the changes of the submarine currents may have had an influence either on the temperature of the water, or on the abundance of certain mollusca on which the Aronde feeds.

On the morning of the 20th our host's son, a young and very robust Indian, conducted us by the way of Barigon and Caney to the village of Maniquarez, which was four hours' walk. From the effect of the reverberation of the sands, the thermometer kept up to 31.3 degrees. The cylindric cactus, which bordered the road, gave the landscape an appearance of verdure, without affording either coolness or shade. Before our guide had walked a league, he began to sit down every moment, and at length he wished to repose under the shade of a fine tamarind tree near Casas de la Vela, to await the approach of night. This characteristic trait, which we observed every time we travelled with Indians, has given rise to very erroneous ideas of the physical constitutions of the different races of men. The copper-coloured native, more accustomed to the burning heat of the climate, than the European traveller, complains more, because he is stimulated by no interest.

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