THE PEARL.                                   295
	form the whole volume of the peerless Pearl. The finest Pearls come from Bahrein, (Persian Gulf), from whence the best are sent to Europe ; and the smaller pearls to China, where they are sold by weight, for medicinal purposes. When the oysters are brought to land, at the Pearl Fisheries, (of which the most famous are at Ceylon), they are all thrown into a mass together, and left there for several days to decay, so that the gems may be more easily detached. But if left too long in what presently becomes a foul, putrid mass, the pearls grow yellow, and lose their purity of sheen, and colour. When detached from the shells they are shaken through sieves of successive fineness, those sieves which have the largest interstices keeping back only the largest pearls ; and so on through the whole quantity of ten sizes down to the small grains known as seed-pearls, which, if not very valuable, are yet very pretty, if well-wrought. When a lot of the oysters, heaped together, had become " matured," (as Mr. Somers Somerset has told from personal observation, 1907), it was, taken away in sacks to a spot some distance apart from all dwelling-houses ; a large tub was procured, and partly filled with water; and the putrefying contents of one sack were emptied into it. To describe the appalling stench which immediately arose is an impossible task; a stink quite overwhelming, and absolutely unendurable ! In a moment the surface of the water was covered with thousands of maggots, struggling wildly to escape out of the tub. These were drained off, and fresh water was poured in; while the shells were picked out from beneath the water, tapped together so as to shake out any pearls which might have chanced to adhere within them, and then thrown