Such As Are Loose Are Called Seed Pearls.

An Arab came once to Bassora with a pearl of great value, which he shewed to a merchant, and was astonished when he got so large a sum for it as an hundred drams of silver; with which he purchased corn to carry back to his own country.

But the merchant carried his acquisition to Bagdad, where he sold it for a large sum of money, by which he was afterwards enabled to extend his dealings to a great amount. The Arab gave the following account of the way in which he had found this large pearl: Going one day along the shore, near Saman, in the district of Bahrein[21], he saw a fox lying dead, with something hanging at his muzzle, which held him fast, which he discovered to be a white lucid shell, in which he found this pearl. He concluded that the oyster had been thrown ashore by a tempest, and lay with its shell open on the beach, when the fox, attracted by the smell, had thrust in his muzzle to get at the meat, on which the oyster closed its shell, and held him fast till he died: for it is a property of the oyster never to let go its hold, except forcibly opened, by thrusting in an iron instrument between the shells, carefully guarding its included pearl, as a mother preserves her child.

The kings of the Indies wear ear-rings of gold, set with precious stones, and they wear collars of great value, adorned with gems of various colours, chiefly green and red; yet pearls are most esteemed, and their value surpasses that of all other jewels, and these they hoard up in their treasuries, with their most precious things. The grandees of their courts, their great officers, and the military commanders, wear similar jewels in their collars. Their dress is a kind of half vest, and they carry parasols made of peacocks feathers to shade them from the sun, and are surrounded by great trains of servants.

Among the Indians, there are certain people who never eat two out of the same dish or even at the same table, on account of some religious opinion. When these come to Siraf, and are invited by our considerable merchants, were there a hundred of them more or less, they must each have a separate dish, without the least communication with the rest. Their kings and principal persons have fresh tables made for them every day, with little dishes and plates wove of the cocoa nut leaf, out of which they eat their victuals. And when their meal is over, the table dishes and plates are all thrown into the water, together with the fragments of their food; so that they must have a fresh service for every meal.

To the Indies the merchants used formerly to carry the dinars, called sindiat, or gold coins of the Sind, which passed there for three of our dinars, or even more. Thither also were carried emeralds from Egypt, which were much used for setting in rings.

[1] From the description of this place afterwards, in the travels of Ebn Wahab, in this article, it appears to have been Nankin. - E.

[2] The chronology of the Chinese history is attended with extreme difficulty. According to Du Halde: In the reign of the emperor Hi Tseng, the 18th of the Tsong dynasty, the empire fell into great confusion, in consequence of heavy taxations, and a great famine occasioned by the inundation of the rivers, and the ravages of locusts. These things caused many insurrections, and a rebel, named Hoan Tsia put himself at the head of the malcontents, and drove the emperor from the imperial city. But he was afterwards defeated, and the emperor restored. It must be owned that there are about twenty years difference between the time of the rebellion mentioned in the text, and the date of the great revolt, as assigned by Du Halde; but whether the mistake lies in the Arabian manuscript, or in the difficulties of Chinese chronology, I cannot take upon me to determine; yet both stories probably relate to the same event. - Harris.

[3] According to Abulpharagius, one Abu Said revolted against the Khaliff Al Mohated, in the year of the hegira, 285, A.D. 893, and laid waste Bassora. This date agrees with the story of Ebn Wahab in the text. - Harris.

[4] From this circumstance, it appears probable that the great canal of China was not then constructed. - E.

[5] Some circumstances in this very interesting detail have been a little curtailed. If Abu Zaid had been a man of talents, he might surely have acquired and transmitted more useful information from this traveller; who indeed seems to have been a poor drivelling zelot. - E.

[6] There is a vast deal of error in this long paragraph. It certainly was impossible to ascertain the route or voyage of the wreck, which was said to have been cast away on the coast of Syria. If it could have been ascertained to have come from the sea of the Chozars, or the Euxine, by the canal of Constantinople, and the Egean, into the gulf of Syria, and actually was utterly different from the build of the Mediterranean, it may or must have been Russian. If it certainly was built at Siraff, some adventurous Arabian crew must have doubled the south of Africa from the east, and perished when they had well nigh immortalized their fame, by opening up the passage by sea from Europe to India: And as the Arabian Moslems very soon navigated to Zanguebar, Hinzuan, and Madagascar, where their colonies still remain, this list is not impossible, though very unlikely. The ambergris may have proceeded from a sick cachalot that had wandered into the Mediterranean.

The north-east passage around the north of Asia and Europe, which is adduced by the commentator, in Harris's Collection, is now thoroughly known to be impracticable.

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