Читать книгу Up the Orinoco and down the Magdalena - J. A. Zahm - Страница 13

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Within sight of the land where Las Casas went to lay the first foundation-stone of his ideal commonwealth is a group of islands which had a special claim on our attention—islands which, during four centuries, have been the scene of many a romance and have been stained, no one can tell how often, by the blood of tragedy.

These islands are Coche, Cubagua and Margarita. They were discovered by Columbus during his third voyage, and the larger of the two was called Margarita—pearl—from the number and beauty of the pearls found in the waters that wash its shore. Even before he had left the Gulf of Paria, between Trinidad and the mainland, he had observed that the aborigines of Tierra Firme were decked with bracelets and necklaces of pearl, and soon discovered, to his great satisfaction, that these much-prized gems could be obtained in great abundance, and that many of them were of extraordinary size and beauty. Peter Martyr, as translated by Eden, tells us, “Many of these pearls were as bygge as hasellnuttes, and oriente (as we caule it), that is lyke unto them of the Easte partes.”45 During the first third of the sixteenth century the value of the pearls sent to Europe was equal to nearly one-half of the output of all the mines in America.46 In one year—1587—after the pearl fisheries of the Gulf of Panama had been discovered, nearly seven hundred pounds weight of pearls was sent to the markets of Europe, some of them rivaling in beauty of sheen and perfection of form the rarest gems ever found in the waters of Persia or Ceylon. It was from these fisheries of the New World that Philip II obtained the famous pearl, weighing two hundred and fifty carats, of the size and shape of a pigeon’s egg, mentioned by the early chroniclers.

So great was the commercial activity among these little islands, especially in Cubagua, that the Spaniards built a town there, which they called New Cadiz, although the site chosen was without water, and so sterile that the Indians had never lived on it. Toward the end of the sixteenth century the pearl fishery in these parts diminished rapidly, and in the early part of the century following, the industry, according to Laet, had died out altogether, and the islands of Coche and Cubagua fell into oblivion. But while it lasted, sad to say, it meant untold misery for the thousands of Indian and Negro slaves who were forced, at the sacrifice of their health and often of their lives, to enrich their cruel masters by work that was almost as fatal as that in the mines of Española.

For more than two hundred years the pearl fisheries in the waters around these islands were practically abandoned. Even during the last century comparatively little work was done to develop an industry that, during the sixteenth century, contributed so much to the coffers of Spain. About the year 1900, however, a French company secured a concession from Venezuela to fish in the neighborhood of these islands. According to agreement, it is to pay the government ten per cent. royalty, and to employ divers and diving apparatus so as to select only the larger oysters and avoid the destruction of those that are immature.

From the estimates available, about $600,000 worth of pearls are annually sent to the Paris market from Margarita. While a large proportion of them are cracked and of poor color, there are, nevertheless, many of the finest orient, and these find ready purchasers. As for ourselves, we saw few of large size, and none of great value. Even in Caracas, where we made diligent inquiry about them, we did not find a single one from these waters that would attract attention for either size or lustre.47

The weather could not have been more delightful than it was during our all too brief cruise among these islands around which at one time, as has been truly remarked, “all the wonder, all the pity and all the greed of the age had concentrated itself.” They are now shorn of all their former glory, and there is little to indicate their pristine importance. They are practically deserted, with the exception of Margarita, which, on account of the arid and unproductive soil, is but sparsely inhabited. And yet, as they lay clustered there on the calm bosom of the Caribbean, without a ripple to disturb its mirror-like surface, they possessed a certain undefinable beauty that defied analysis. Besides, there was still hovering over and around them the glamour of days long past, when they were visited for the first time by the great Admiral of the Ocean Sea, and later on, by Cristobal Guerra and Alonzo Niño, and by Francisco Orellana, after his memorable voyage down the Amazon.

The sun was sloping down to his ocean bed—the air was glimmering with a mellow light, as we drifted from these waters over which Merlin seemed to wave his enchanting wand. As the orb of day touched the distant horizon, and sank into the crimson mist that floated above the placid sea, it assumed strange oval and pear-shaped figures that grew larger in their waning splendor. The rainbow hues that steeped in molten lustre the receding shores seemed to float on clouds from spirit-land.

A scene it was to swell the tamest bosom, a fairy realm where Fancy would

“Bid the blue Tritons sound their twisted shells,

And call the Nereids from their pearly cells.”

Below us, beneath the dark depths of the crystal sea, illumined by the lamps of the sea-nymphs, were living flower beds of coral, the blooms and the palms of the ocean recesses, where the pearl lies hid, and caves where the gem is sleeping, the gardens, fair and bewildering in their richness and beauty, of Nereus and Amphitrite. It was indeed such a scene as the poet has painted for us in these charming verses:—

“Wherever you wander the sea is in sight,

With its changeable turquoise green and blue,

And its strange transparence of limpid light.

You can watch the work that the Nereids do

Down, down, where their purple fans unfurl,

Planting their coral and sowing their pearl.”