Influenced by the advice of the caciques Chiapes and Tumaco, Vasco Nunez decided to postpone his visit to the island until spring or summer, at which time Chiapes offered to accompany him.  Meanwhile he understood the caciques had nets near the coasts where they fished for pearl oysters.  The caciques have skilful divers trained from infancy to this profession, and who dive for these oysters as though in fish-ponds, but they only do so when the sea is calm and the water low, which renders diving easier.  The larger the shells the more deeply are they embedded.  The oysters of ordinary size, like daughters of the others, lie nearer the surface, while the little ones, like grandchildren, are still nearer.  It is necessary to dive three and sometimes even four times a man’s height to find the more deeply embedded shells; but to get the daughters and grandchildren it is not required to go deeper than the waist and sometimes even less.  It sometimes happens, after heavy storms when the sea calms down, that a multitude of these shells, torn by the waves from their beds, are deposited on the shore, but this sort only contains very small pearls.  The meat of these bivalves, like that of our oysters, is good to eat, and it is even claimed their flavour is more delicate.  I suspect that hunger, which is the best sauce for every dish, has induced this opinion among our compatriots.

Are pearls, as Aristotle states, the heart of the shells, or are they rather, as Pliny says, the product of the intestines and really the excrement of these animals?  Do oysters pass their whole life attached to the same rock, or do they move through the sea in numbers, under the leadership of older ones?  Does one shell produce one or many pearls?  Is there but one growth, or is such growth ever repeated?  Must one have a rake to detach them, or are they gathered without trouble?  Are pearls in a soft or hard state when they enter the shell?  These are problems which we have not yet solved, but I hope that I may some day enlighten my doubts on this subject, for our compatriots possess means for studying these questions.  As soon as I am informed of the landing of the captain, Pedro Arias, I shall write and ask him to make a serious inquiry concerning these points, and to send me the precise results he obtains.  I know he will do this, for he is my friend.  Is it not really absurd to keep silence about a subject interesting to men and women both in ancient times and in our own, and which inflames everybody with such immoderate desires?  Spain may henceforth satisfy the desires of a Cleopatra or an AEsop for pearls.  No one will henceforth rage against or envy the riches of Stoides[1] or Ceylon, of the Indian Ocean or the Red Sea.  But let us come back to our subject.

[Note 1:  Pliny mentions this island, off the coast of Macedonia, as having pearl fisheries.]