46 Pearls.
so
in Florida, the graves of the kings were decorated with Pearls. Soto's
soldiers found in one of their temples, great wooden coffins, in which
the dead lay embalmed, and beside them were small baskets full of
Pearls. The temple of Tolomecco, however, was the richest in Pearls ;
its high walls and roof were of Mother-of-Pearl, while strings of
Pearls, and plumes of feathers hung round the walls ; over the coffins
of their kings, hung their shields, crowned with Pearls, and in the.
centre of the temple stood vases full of costly Pearls.
To
return to the history of Pearls in Europe ; we find them much worn both
by men and women during the 16th and 17th centuries. Marie dé Medici,
wife of Henry IV. of France, wore at the christening of her son (1601)
a gorgeous dress ornamented with 3,000 diamonds and 32,000 Pearls,
valued at 60,000 crowns.
The
Elector Maximilian of Bavaria, in 1635, sent his bride, the daughter of
the Emperor Ferdinand II., a present of a string of 300 selected Pearls
each of which cost 1,000 gulden (about £100).
Table
decorations were also very magnificent at that time, and Charles II. of
Spain, in 1680, presented his wife with an ornament in the form of a
salad, in which the leaves were represented
