they were ornamented with pearls in a similar way, but the latter have entirely disappeared.
Gabriele Bremond states in his "Viaggi di Egitto," Lib. I,
c. 30, that it was a Mohammedan custom to embroider baldachins and
carpets of precious metals with pearls. This use is especially
typified in a baldachin of gold embroidered with pearls which is over
the sepulcher of Mohammed at Mecca.1
When
the Mohammedans captured the Persian city Ctesiphon, in 637, they
collected an immense booty. Each of the 60,000 soldiers received the
value of 12,000 dirhems ($1560), a total of $93,600,000. Among the
treasures sent to Caliph Omar (581-644), in Medina, was a crown,
perhaps that of Khusrau I (499-579), which Tabari says was studded with
1000 pearls each as large as a bird's egg.2 There
was also a wonderful carpet 450 feet long and 90 broad, with a border
of emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and pearls, representing luxuriant
foliage and beautiful flowers. Tabari states that it was called the
"Winter Carpet," because "the Persian kings used it in winter when
there was no longer verdure or flowers, for whoever was seated on this
carpet thought he looked out upon a garden or a green field.3
On
the occasion of the marriage of the Caliph Al-Mamun (786-833) with the
daughter of Hassan Sahal, all the grandees of Al-Mamun received slaves
of both sexes as presents from the bride's father. The preliminary
negotiations were held at Fomal Saleh, and the road traversed by the
bride and bridegroom to reach Bagdad, a distance of one hundred miles,
was covered with mats of cloth of gold and silver. We are told that the
bride wore on her head-dress a thousand pearls, each of which is said
to have been of enormous value.4
Describing the birthday festival of Kublai Khan (circa 1275 a.D.), Marco
Polo says : "The Great Kaan dresses in the best of his robes, all
wrought with beaten gold; and full 12,000 Barons and Knights on that
day came forth dressed in robes of the same colour, and precisely like
those of the Great Kaan, except that they are not so costly; but still
they are all of the same colour as his, and are also of silk and gold.
Every man so clothed has a girdle of gold ; and this as well as the
dress is given him by the Sovereign. And I will aver that there are
some of these suits decked with so many pearls and precious stones that
a single suit shall be worth full 10,000 golden bezants [about $25,000]
."5
In the Kan period, in China, the dead bodies of the emperors were
1 "Delia Storia Naturale délie Gemme délie 4 Alexander, "The History of Women,"
Piètre e di tutti i Minerali," Giacinto Gimma, London, 1782, Vol. II, p. 136.
Naples, 1730.
" "The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Vene-
1 Tabari, "Chronique," translated by Zoten- tian," trans, and ed. by Col. Henry Yule,
berg, Paris, 1869, Vol. II, p. 304. London, 1871, Vol. I, p. 343.
'Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 417.
