Owing to their small size and lack of thickness, the shells of the Venezuela pearl-oyster are of little or no value in the mother-of-pearl trade. Thousands of tons of them, the accumulations of scores of fisheries, lie in heaps and ridges along the coast, as though in years long past vast armies of oysters, engaged in deadly combat, had left their innumerable myriads of slain comrades to bleach on the shores.
THE PANAMA PEARL FISHERIES
The bordring Ilands, seated here in ken,
Whose Shores are sprinkled with rich Orient Pearle,
More bright of hew than were the Margarets
That Caesar found in wealthy Albion.
Robert Greene, Orlando Furioso (1594).
From the point of view of the Spaniards of his day, the greatest result of Balboa’s immortal journey in 1513 across the Isthmus of Panama to the broad waters of the Pacific, was the discovery of the pearl resources of the Gulf of St. Michael, now known as the Gulf of Panama. Probably the best description of this is given by Lopez de Gomara in his “Historia general de las Indias,” published in 1554, from which we translate the following account.
After Balboa had reached the Pacific in 1513, he proceeded a short distance along the coast until he met with an Indian chief by the name of Tomaco. Being questioned about the gold and pearls which some of his people wore, Tomaco sent for some gold and 240 large pearls and a great number of small ones—a rich present, which filled the Spaniards with pleasure. Seeing the Spaniards so delighted, Tomaco ordered some of his men to go and fish for pearls. These went and in a few days obtained 64 ounces, which also he gave them. The Spaniards were surprised to see such pearls, and that their owners did not value them; they not only gave them away, but their paddles were decorated therewith, for the principal income and wealth of these chiefs was the pearl fishery. Tomaco told Balboa that these riches were nothing in comparison with those of Tararequi, which had pearls larger than a man’s eye, taken from oysters the size of sombreros. The Spaniards wished to go there at once, but fearing another tempest, left it for their return. They dismissed Tomaco and rested in the country of Chiape, who, at the request of Balboa, sent thirty of his men to fish. These did it in the presence of seven Spaniards, who looked on and saw them take six loads of small shells. As it was not the season for that fishery, they did not go into very deep water where the shells were. Not only did they not fish in September and the following months, but they did not even travel by water, on account of the stormy weather which then prevails in that sea. The pearls which they extracted from those shells were like peas, but very fine and white. Of those received from Tomaco, some were black, others green, blue, and yellow.
On the return of Balboa’s expedition to Darien in 1514, the sight of the pearls and the wonderful reports made by the men, caused his successor, Pedrarias, to fit out another expedition, an account of which we likewise translate from Gomara.