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the pearl fisheries, and the conversation of the officers naturally ran
largely on pearl, while we two women, the sole passengers, over
the worst stretch of sea, for its size, on the globe, lay white and
still. La Pellegrina itself would not have interested us at that
crucial hour!
The Netherland East Indies, particularly about Celebes, gives
forth some fine white pearls, like the beautiful Macassar shell. Rarely
are they colored, though some have a yellowish tinge. They are
carried for sale to the free port of Singapore. The fishing there
for many years was happy-go-lucky, anybody going in, but re-
cently the Dutch Government has restricted all business to subjects
of its own nationality, and such as legally have been endowed with
special privileges.
On the northern and western coasts of Australia, more especially
in Sharks Bay, have been found remarkable pearls of a deep
yellow, and also off the Sulu Islands, in the Malay Archipelago,
midway between Borneo and the Philippines. It is in Sulu that the
superstition about the yellowish pearl found in the nautilus prevails.
If worn in a ring to battle, the warrior will surely be killed.
In most of the warmer waters of the Pacific, notably the South
Sea Islands, are found good pearls. The methods of fishing them
are primitive; it is here that man most nearly approaches the amphibious
species. About Tahiti, the port of the Society Islands, the
natives are such wonderful swimmers as to seem fish rather than
human. The diver wears no armor, a stone attached to the foot
carries him quickly down, and he accomplishes a great deal, as do all
pearl divers, when we consider that they can remain below but little
over a minute. The helmet, wherever used, brings up more dead
men than pearls, they say, and beyond frustrating the tyranny of
masters, restricting the hours of labor, and the risk run,
better to leave things much as they have been for centuries, particularly
the delicate human element, the diver who is the crux
of the whole situation.
In the Western world, the most important ocean finds are off
the coasts of Mexico, more conspicuously Lower California. Here is
the main habitat of the black pearl.
The Panama beds play little part in the market. Valuable pearls
are not common, those found do not command a high price, and
the fisheries have steadily declined. The colors are from white to
green and dead gray, sometimes greenish black, the last being best
liked. As a rule they are sold in Paris, because of close commercial
relations between France and the Isthmus, not because they are
more valued there, whence they sometimes find their way to the
it seems
United States. These pearls were discovered by Balboa.
On the coast of California, about the Catalina Islands, is found
the abalorie, or ear shell, a univalve. Occasionally a very beautiful
pearl is found in this species, usually irregular in shape, of a lovely
green, sometimes fawn color, with an intense flame-like iridescence.
Such is the wonderful pear-shaped jewel, weighing over 40 karats,
which formed the drop to Nordica's necklace of colored pearls, one
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