KRUGER'S UNLUCKY DIAMOND.
When Kruger went to Europe he took with him a famous diamond, which was said to have brought misfortune and death to all its possessors. It had a strange history.
The diamond originally belonged to Meshhesh, a Basuto chief, from whom it was extorted by T'Chaka, the Zulu King. T'Chaka's brother killed him and stole the stone. The brother came to grief and the gem passed into the possession of a Zulu chief, who soon afterward was assassinated. The natives say that no less than sixteen of the successive possessors of the diamond were either killed or driven out of the country for the sake of the gem.
The diamond was then seen by white men who sought to possess it. A party of whites attacked the natives who had the stone in their possession, and a fierce fight ensued, in which 300 lives, mostly natives, were lost.
Memela, a native chief, took the gem and concealed it in a wound which he had received in the battle. Afterward Memela was caught by the Boers and set to work as a slave. Kruger, hearing his story, released him, and in gratitude Memela gave the stone to his liberator. Some years passed, and then Kruger met his misfortune.
Where the fatal diamond is now is not certain, though it is certain that the ex-President of the Transvaal parted with it. Some say that it is in the coffers of the Vatican, and some that it was sold to the Emperor of Austria, and is now among the crown jewels of Vienna.
The stone is said to be 200 carats in weight, but is not perfect.--Baltimore Sun.
STRANGE WILLS.
There have not been many will makers more eccentric than Mr. MacCraig, the Scotch banker, whose last testament will shortly come under the consideration of the Edinburgh Court of Session. Mr. MacCraig it may be remembered left instructions in his will that gigantic statues of himself, his brothers and sisters, a round dozen in all, should be placed on the summit of a great tower he had commenced to build on Battery Hill, near Oban--each statue to cost not less than $5,000.