for
broken pieces of gaudily painted and varnished porcelain. As one
to-day might take a new acquaintance for a day's fishing to a
well-stocked stream, so the Indians took the Spaniards to the pearl
banks to show them how they obtained their pearls. With pleasure and
probably some amusement, they watched the eagerness with which the
strangers sought the pearls, and doubtless wondered- at the
gratification displayed when they found any.
The
Egyptians and Asiatics being more highly civilized undoubtedly valued
their pearls more than the South American Indians did, but naturally
they would not appreciate them so highly as they did after foreign
desire had depleted their hoards and established a constant demand for
them, greater than the yield of their fisheries.
That
this condition prevailed in Egypt and Asia prior to the advent of
Europeans, is indicated by the apparent ignorance of the writer of the
book of Job concerning pearls. The word used in Chapter XXVIII. 18 is
simply the translator's sign for an unknown quantity, and as the pearl
is an apt symbol and illustration of
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