THE FASHION OF PEARLS
with
them as also did the royalties and nobles of Europe during the middle
ages. Seed pearls were strung in lengths of four to six feet and the
strands twisted together like a rope. This fashion continues to this
day, such ropes of pearls sometimes measuring five feet in length.
The
semi-barbarous Indian tribes of America did not confine the use of
pearls altogether to personal adornment. They decorated their idols,
state canoes, the handles of the paddles, and the figures in their
temples with them, and they buried enormous quantities in the
sepulchres with their dead. There is no evidence that this latter form
of extravagance was at any time general in Asia or Europe, but Julius
Cassar made a buckler of British pearls which he hung up in the temple
of Venus Genetrix after dedicating it to her.
Among
the ancients it does not appear that pearls were used in connection
with the precious metals to a great extent. Collars of gold and silver
with large pearls as pendants were sometimes seen upon the necks of
Indians by the Spaniards when they landed on this continent, but in
Asia, Africa, and upon their first intro-
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