The same travellers relate the story of the discovery of a pearl under very singular conditions. An Arab came to Bassora with a very fine pearl. He took it to a druggist whom he knew and asked the latter how much it was worth. The merchant estimated it at a hundred pieces of silver, to the great surprise of the Arab, who demanded whether anyone could be found willing to pay so much. Without hesitation the merchant declared that he was ready to give the price himself, and immediately paid over the money. He then took his purchase to Bagdad, where he secured a large profit on his investment. On concluding his sale the Arab told the Bassora druggist how he had secured his pearl. One day, while walking along the Bahrein coast, he saw on the sands a dead fox, whose mouth was tightly compressed by a strange object. On closer observation this proved to be an enormous pearl-oyster shell. Evidently the fox had thrust his snout into the shell while the valves were open so that he might devour the soft contents, but the valves suddenly closed upon him and he had died of suffocation. On prying open the shell the Arab found therein the pearl which was destined to bring him what he regarded as a fabulous sum.[681] The women of the Arab town occupying a site close to that on which stood the Babylon of ancient times, wore, as a favorite adornment, nose-rings of gold set with a pearl and a turquoise. The English traveller, John Eldred, who traversed Mesopotamia in 1583, found this custom so general that he writes: “This they doe be they never so poore.”[682] For years a statement has been going through the press that pearls are liable to become diseased and die, and that the famous necklace of pearls presented by President Thiers of France to his wife, and bequeathed by Mme. Thiers to the French Government, had lost their lustre and died, perhaps owing to the death of the owner. For there is an old belief that pearls, as well as opals and turquoises, lose some of their lustre when the owner or wearer becomes ill, and change to a dull and lifeless hue when the owner dies. An examination of the necklace by the writer showed that the pearls were in good condition, and to confirm his statement to this effect he had the director of the Louvre Museum write him a letter. In this official communication the director not only states that the pearls had not sickened and died, but that they were in as “healthy” a condition as they had ever been. The invariable experience of the writer has been that whenever pearls have been said to have suffered in this way, the true explanation has been that they were old and poor at the time of their purchase, and that this romance was started on its travels as an excuse to cover up the defect of such pearls and to arouse the belief that they had been remarkably beautiful and valuable when they were originally acquired.