River Pearls ; Chinese.                    255
	a few days' respite in bamboo cages in water, before being tortured for the gratification of human vanity, when they are taken out to receive the matrices. These are various in form and material, the most common being pellets made of mud, taken from the bottom of water-courses, dried, powdered with the juice of camphor-tree seeds, and formed into pills which, when dry, are fit for introduction into the unfortunate subject. Moulds which best exhibit the nacreous deposit are brought from Canton, and appear to be made from the shell of the Pearl-oyster. The irregular fragments thus procured are triturated with sand in an iron mortar, until they become smooth and globular. Another class of moulds consists of small images, generally of Buddha, in the usual sitting posture, or sometimes of a fish ; they are made of lead, cast very thin, by pouring on a board having the impression. Pearls having these forms have excited much surprise, since they first attracted the attention of foreigners a few years back. The introduction of the Pearl nuclei is an operation of considerable delicacy. The shell is generally opened with a spatula of Mother-of-Pearl, and the free portion of the mollusc is carefully sepa­rated from one surface of the shell with an iron probe ; the foreign bodies are then successively in­troduced at the point of a bifurcated bamboo stick,