Juma Bana, the Indian merchant I speak of, has always a little assortment of stones, wrapped up according to quality, in small pieces of red or white cloth. He is by way of being the local expert, and, by aid of his magnifying glass, will pick out the better grade stones from the inferior, telling you what is wrong with the latter as he does so. To please Juma a stone must be perfectly round, of a good colour, and without flaw. An almost microscopic scratch or spot constitutes a flaw. And yet it is Juma's misshapen collection of pearls that I love best to examine, even though he assures me that they are of no value at all. To my mind their very irregularity accentuates the beauty of their delicate indescribable lights. What happens to them I know not, but one can buy dozens of the smaller kinds for a song. Poor stones! The pearl shells are worthy homes for the stones. They are very beautiful. It is as if they were lined with dissolved pearl to provide tiny baths for the fairies. They are, however, used for less romantic purposes, being made into buttons and ornaments for every day mortals. But no ornament could possibly be more beautiful than a plain mother-o'-pearl shell with its cool, pure lining of ice-white, bordered with delicate and deep greens, as the colour of the tropical sea in certain changing lights. CHAPTER XVI A PEARL DIVER AT HOME Adan Abdallah and his story--Another story in which I play a part. Adan Abdallah was born somewhere in the Soudan, and belongs to the class formed from mixed tribes belonging to that country, and known in North and East Africa as Soudanese. This means that he is Mahomedan, and has severed all connection with his mother tribe, whatever it may have been. Many years ago a rich Arab, making the holy pilgrimage from Khartoum to Mecca, was accompanied by Adan in the capacity of servant. On the return journey the Arab succumbed to smallpox at Jeddah, and Adan, being without a penny in the world, and having had some experience on the large sailing boats of the Nile, shipped as a sailor on a dhow trading between the Arabian coast and Zeila. At Zeila he left the Arab boat and joined a pearler. In the course of time he did so well that he was able to purchase a dhow of his own, marry a Somal girl and make a little home for himself and wife in the town. That is many years ago, and nowadays there are as many young Adans running about as years have passed since he married. Once he changed his place of residence from Zeila to Djibouti, but left the latter place in disgust for the following reason. He had sailed his dhow from the French port down the British coast to Wakderia, beyond Berbera ing and fired off their rifles as a sign they were returning to the rescue. Hearing this the Arabs ran for their dhow, but not before they had killed the small boy, and a couple of their own number were lying prostrate in the bottom of the boat.