Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 166 of 407 - First - Home
Nunc, Illa Deficiente, Obscura Admodum
Fama." Laet Nova Orbis Page 669.
This accurate compiler, speaking
of Punta Araya, adds, this country is so forgotten, "ut vix ulla
Americae meridionalis pars hodie obscurior sit.") The industry of
the Venetians, who imitated fine pearls with great exactness, and
the frequent use of cut diamonds,* rendered the fisheries of
Cubagua less lucrative.
(* The cutting of diamonds was invented by
Lewis de Berquen, in 1456, but the art became common only in the
following century.) At the same time, the oysters which yielded the
pearls became scarcer, not, because, according to a popular
tradition, they were frightened by the sound of the oars, and
removed elsewhere; but because their propagation had been impeded
by the imprudent destruction of the shells by thousands. The
pearl-bearing oyster is of a more delicate nature than most of the
other acephalous mollusca. At the island of Ceylon, where, in the
bay of Condeatchy, the fishery employs six hundred divers, and
where the annual produce is more than half a million of piastres,
it has vainly been attempted to transplant the oysters to other
parts of the coast. The government permits fishing there only
during a single month; while at Cubagua the bank of shells was
fished at all seasons. To form an idea of the destruction of the
species caused by the divers, we must remember that a boat
sometimes collects, in two or three weeks, more than thirty-five
thousand oysters. The animal lives but nine or ten years; and it is
only in its fourth year that the pearls begin to show themselves.
In ten thousand shells there is often not a single pearl of value.
Tradition records that on the bank of Margareta the fishermen
opened the shells one by one: in the island of Ceylon the animals
are thrown into heaps to rot in the air; and to separate the pearls
which are not attached to the shell, the animal pulp is washed, as
miners wash the sand which contains grains of gold, tin, or
diamonds.
At present Spanish America furnishes no other pearls for trade than
those of the gulf of Panama, and the mouth of the Rio de la Hacha.
On the shoals which surround Cubagua, Coche, and the island of
Margareta, the fishery is as much neglected as on the coasts of
California.* (* I am astonished at never having heard, in the
course of my travels, of pearls found in the fresh-water shells of
South America, though several species of the Unio genus abound in
the rivers of Peru.) It is believed at Cumana, that the
pearl-oyster has greatly multiplied after two centuries of repose;
and in 1812, some new attempts were made at Margareta for the
fishing of pearls. It has been asked, why the pearls found at
present in shells which become entangled in the fishermen's nets
are so small, and have so little brilliancy,* whilst, on the
Spaniards' arrival, they were extremely beautiful, though the
Indians doubtless had not taken the trouble of diving to collect
them.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 166 of 407
Words from 85874 to 86385
of 211363