Читать книгу The Book of the Pearl. The history, art, science, and industry of the queen of gems онлайн

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The earliest writing of Europeans on the East refer to these fisheries. An account of them was given by the Greek writer Megasthenes, who accompanied Seleucus Nicator, the Macedonian general, in his Asiatic conquests, about 307 B.C. Shortly afterward they were noted by the Greek historian, Isidorus of Charace, in his account of the Parthian Empire. Extracts from Nearchus preserved by Arrian also mention them. Ptolemy speaks of the pearl fisheries which existed from time immemorial at Tylos, the Roman name for the present Island of Bahrein. These resources were well known in the days of Pliny. In his “Historia Naturalis,” Book IX, ch. 35, he says: “But the most perfect and exquisite [pearls] of all others be they that are gotten about Arabia, within the Persian Gulf.”^[90] Pliny states also (Book VI, ch. 25) that Catifa (El Katiff), on the Arabian coast opposite Bahrein, was the center of an important fishery.

In the ninth century these fisheries were noted by Massoudi, one of the earliest Arabian geographers.^[91] In the latter part of the twelfth century they were visited and described by the Spanish-Hebrew traveler, Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela.^[92] The Arabian traveler, Ibn Batuta, wrote of them about 1336.^[93] In 1508 they were noted in the account of Lodovico Barthema’s expedition to the Island of Ormus. According to him: