The natives tell a story of a certain datu, who was a great trader, and fond of sailing a prahu from Sulu to Manilla; during the course of his voyages, he made the acquaintance of an English merchant, who had, on various occasions, trusted him with goods and treated him very liberally, not an unusual circumstance in the East. At last the datu took to gambling, and squandered all his property, sold his houses, his slaves, and at last lost a large sum, and was obliged to place his wife and children in pawn as security. The only property he had preserved was a favourite slave boy, and with him he started in a small canoe to the oyster-banks. There they remained fishing, and had varied success, but every day increasing the amount in the hollow bamboo in which the natives generally keep their small seed pearls. In the evenings the datu would talk over the tales they had heard from other fishermen, and the chief delighted to recount the story of the vast pearl which was seen by the men of old, and actually brought in its oyster into a canoe, but had slipped from the fingers of the incautious captor. The natives declare that the oysters containing the largest pearls are always open, until you approach them, and that by cautiously peering into the water, they may be seen. One day the slave boy was preparing to dive, when he started back, touched his master’s sleeve, and with signs of great emotion pointed into the water; he could not speak. The datu looked, and there, seven fathoms below them, lay an oyster, with an enormous pearl distinctly visible. Without a moment’s reflection, he plunged in, and dived with such skill and speed, that he reached the shell before it closed, and actually had his fingers caught in it. He thrust hand and shell into his bosom, and, being an expert swimmer, rose quickly to the surface, and was helped into the boat by his anxious follower. They then forced open the oyster, and there lay a pearl, unsurpassed in size and of an extraordinary shape; they pulled back to Sugh, and selling all his smaller pearls, the datu redeemed his wife and children, and set sail for Manilla. There he went to the house of his English friend and said, “Take this pearl, clear off my debt, give me what you like in return, I shall be satisfied.” The merchant took the pearl, gave him what he considered its value, at all events, enough to make Sulu ring with his generosity, and sent the pearl to China, and what became of it I never could distinctly trace; but I heard that what was called the “Mermaid Pearl” in Bengal originally came from China, and the Sulus say their one was like the body of a woman.