THE PEARLING GROUNDS OF THE WORLD
T
HE early shadowy
races of men who were actors on this stage where we to-day play our
little part must have prized the pearl too, for as soon as history
begins we find it already cherished and sought. We shall never know
where those earliest pearls came from, for what is now sea was once
land, and what are now mountain-tops were once submerged, and the
configuration of the world has changed many times.
But
we know where the great nations of early historical times obtained
their pearls. The ancient fishing-grounds were in the midst of the
successive empires of the Middle East, Babylon, Assyria, Persia, and
the territories of Alexander, on the coasts of India, in the Persian
Gulf, and the near-by waters of Ceylon. Egypt had yet another source of
supply in the Red Sea. Pearls are still fished from these seas, and
still have the greatest renown of any. They are the famous "Oriental"
pearls.
Once
upon a time, perhaps, the pearl-oyster dwelt in shalÂlower waters than
it does now, for how else could primitive man have gone in quest of
her? It can only have been after he had pursued her relentlessly for
the sake of her flesh or the rare bauble she contained that she
withdrew even farther from the shore and betook herself into deeper and
unfathomed waters. For there is an instinct for self-preservation in
the lowest of living creatures.
In
our own day, man having achieved the conquest of nearly all dry land
and having surveyed much of the ocean which frames it, lovers of pearls
are no longer entirely dependent upon the Persian Gulf. The northwest
and northeast coasts of Australia, for instance, possess rich pearl
beds. These have
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