of the water, the rocks, and the wood, there came in sight (as it were with an intent still to heighten and animate the prospect) a prodigious flight of mackaws, which hovering over this spot, and often wheeling and playing on the wing about it, afforded a most brilliant appearance, by the glittering of the sun on their variegated plumage; so that some of the spectators cannot refrain from a kind of transport, when they recount the complicated beauties which occurred in this extraordinary scene.

In this expedition, along the eastern side of the island, though they met with no inhabitants, yet they saw many huts upon the shore, and great heaps of shells of fine mother-of-pearl scattered up and down in different places:  These were the remains left by the pearl-fishers from Panama, who often frequent this place in the summer season; for the pearl oysters, which are to be met with every where in the bay of Panama, are so plenty at Quibo, that by advancing a very little way into the sea, you might stoop down and reach them from the bottom.  They are usually very large, but extremely tough and unpalatable.

The oysters most productive of pearls, are those found in considerable depths; for, though what are taken up by wading are of the same species, yet the pearls found in them are rare and very small.  It is said, too, that the pearl partakes in some degree of the quality of the bottom on which the oyster is found; so that if the bottom be muddy, the pearl is dark and ill-coloured.

The diving for oysters is a work performed by negro slaves, of whom the inhabitants of Panama and the neighbouring coast formerly kept great numbers, carefully trained to this business.  These are not esteemed complete divers, till they are able to protract their stay under water so long, that the blood gushes out from their nose, mouth, and ears.  It is the tradition of the country, that when this accident has once befallen them, they dive for the future with much greater facility than before; that no inconvenience attends it, the bleeding generally stopping of itself, and that there is no probability of their being subject to it a second time.[1]

[Footnote 1:  The intelligent reader will demand more than the tradition of the country to induce his belief, that this diving business is not most certainly destructive of the miserable wretches who are compelled to pursue it.  The divers in the Persian gulph, where it is well known the pearl fishery is carried on by individuals on their own account, “seldom live to a great age,” (says Mr Morier in the account of his Journey through Persia.) “Their bodies break out in sores, and their eyes become very weak and blood-shot.  They are restricted to a certain regimen; and to food composed of dates and other light ingredients.”  It cannot be imagined that the negroes of Panama fare better in this hazardous occupation.  But to the expression of any solicitude as to their blood, it is very probable the answer might be something in the style of one of Juvenal’s worthy ladies: