minutes
without breathing at the bottom of the sea. The prodigious efforts
which they are obliged to make, and the considerable pressure to which
they are subjected, result in a number of very grave accidents. The
bodies, too, of the unhappy beings who devote themselves to this
frightful trade, are very quickly covered with sores; and very seldom
does a pearl-diver arrive at old age.
The
remarkable appliances which render it possible to stay under the water
for a long time without much inconvenience have been introduced into
the localities where there are pearl fisheries, and will no doubt
diminish wonderfully the sad consequences so long inseparable from this
deadly trade.
Of
all the objects employed as personal ornaments, the pearl is almost
the only one that derives nothing from art. On the contrary, all
attempts made to give it more value only end in deteriorating it.
Pearls
were among the first substances ever employed as ornaments. As far
back, indeed, as we can look into antiquity, we find them figuring in
the first rank.
The
Indian mythology speaks often of the pearl, and attributes its
discovery to Vishnu, who searched the ocean for these ornaments to deck
his daughter Pandata. The Book of Job and the Proverbs of Solomon also
mention them. The accounts of
