Juan Terron, one of the stoutest soldiers of the army, toward noon, drew from his saddle-bags about six pounds of pearls, and pressed a cavalier, one of his friends, to take them. The cavalier thanked him and told him that he ought to keep them, or rather, since the report was current that the general would send to Havana, send them there to buy horses and go no longer afoot. Offended at this answer, Terron replied that “these pearls then shall not go any farther,” and thereupon scattered them here and there upon the grass and through the bushes. They were surprised at this folly, for the pearls were as large as hazel-nuts, and of very fine water, and because they were not pierced they were worth more than six thousand ducats. They collected about thirty of these pearls, which were so beautiful that it made them regret the loss of the others, and say, in raillery, these words, which passed into a proverb with them, “There are no pearls for Juan Terron.”[308] At the capital of Iciaha, De Soto received from the cacique or chief, a string, five feet in length, of beautiful and well-matched pearls as large as filberts. Upon De Soto’s expressing a desire to learn how the gems were extracted from the shells, the chief immediately ordered four boats to fish all night and return in the morning. In the meantime they burnt a great deal of wood upon the shore, in order to make there a great bed of live coals, that at the return of the boats they might put thereon the shells, which would open with the heat. They found, at the opening of the first shells, ten or twelve pearls of the size of a pea, which they took to the cacique, and to the general who was present, and who found them very beautiful, except that the fire had deprived them of a part of their lustre. When the general had seen what he wished, he returned to dine; and immediately after, a soldier entered, who instantly said to him that, in eating oysters which the Indians had caught, his teeth had encountered a very beautiful pearl of a very lively color, and that he begged him to receive it to send to the governess of Cuba. Soto politely refused this pearl, and assured the soldier that he was as obliged to him as if he had accepted it; and that some day he would try to acknowledge his kindness, and the honor which he did his wife; and that he should preserve it to purchase horses at Havana. The Spaniards valued it at four hundred ducats; and as they had not made use of fire to extract it, it had not lost any of its lustre.[309]