arls, he gave them the following information:

"One of the favorite fishing grounds for pearls is at Bahrein, on the
Persian Gulf. The divers bring in the oysters from the fishing banks in
the Gulf, and pile them on the shore in great heaps. Here they lie till
they are rotted; and the stench that arises is enough to turn any
inexperienced stomach. When the substance of the oyster is quite
decomposed, the shells are opened, and the mass of matter they contain
is thrown into tubs, and washed with water. It is necessary to pass the
pulp very carefully through the fingers, for fear that some of the
pearls will be lost, and consequently the washing is very slow. When a
pearl beyond a certain size is found, the washer receives a handsome
present; but below the regulation figure he gets nothing but his daily
wages. Large pearls are very rare, and consequently the chances that a
pearl-washer will make a fortune by a lucky find are exceedingly small.

"There is a belief quite current through the East that the pearl is a
drop of rain-water which has fallen into the shell of the oyster when he
was at the surface, and been afterward hardened. This is a pretty bit of
sentiment; but as the oyster never goes to the surface unless he is
carried there, the story does not have much foundation to rest upon."

"If the pearl is so valuable, and so difficult to get, I should think
there would be men who would try to imitate it," Frank remarked.

"You are quite right," was the reply; "and men have tried a great many
times to make false pearls."

"Have they succeeded?"

"Partially, but not altogether. No counterfeit pearls have yet been made
that could pass all the tests of the genuine; but their lustre is quite
equal sometimes to the best pearls of Ceylon, and they can be made to
deceive anybody but an expert."

"How do they make them?"

[Illustration]

"The best of the false pearls," said the Captain, "are made by what is
known as Jaquin's process. M. Jaquin was a manufacturer of beads in
France, and he spent a great deal of time and money in trying to make
his beads better than any other man's. One day he was walking in his
garden, and observed a remarkably silvery lustre on some water in a
basin. It instantly occurred to him that if he could put that lustre on
his beads, he would have something decidedly new.

"So he called his old servant, and asked what had been in the water. She
answered that it was nothing but some little fi