‘the mildest-mannered man
With all true breeding of a gentleman,’
insisted on exchanging turbans in proof of his regard; and is said to have bestowed upon the diamond thus politely annexed the name of Koh-i-Noor. After the fall of his dynasty, the stone became the property of Ahmed Shah, the founder of the Abdali dynasty of Kabul, and, when Mr. Elphinstone was at Peshawur, was worn by his successor Shah Shuja, on his arm. When Shah Shuja was driven from Kabul, he became the nominal guest and actual prisoner of Runjeet Singh, who, following the good example of Nadir Shah, gently persuaded his protegé to part with his diamond for the revenues of three villages, not one rupee of which he ever realised. ‘By what do you estimate its value?’ asked the Sikh Maharajah of his victim, as the surrendered Koh-i-Noor lay on the arm of his new master. ‘By its good luck,‘ said Shah Shuja, ‘for it hath ever been his who hath conquered his enemies.’
Subsequent events fully proved the truth of this remark, for when the Punjab was annexed by the British Government, it was stipulated among other conditions that the Koh-i-Noor should be presented to the Queen of England. But in spite of its promising name, the ‘Mountain of Light’ was but of inferior lustre, for the Orientals are mere bunglers in the art of diamond-cutting, and lay greater weight upon the size than upon the brilliancy of a jewel. Hence it was resolved to have it recut by the most skilful Amsterdam lapidaries, who came over to England for the purpose. The operation, which was performed with the assistance of a small steam-engine, and cost no less than 5,000l., was perfectly successful; and though the Koh-i-Noor, which formerly weighed 186¼ carats, has been reduced by its conversion into a brilliant of 1023⁄16 carats, it has gained so much in lustre that it now fully deserves the name assigned to it by the hyperbolical phraseology of the East.
All these large diamonds originally came from India; but latterly they have been rivalled by a stone of Brazilian origin, originally weighing 254½ carats, but reduced by cutting to 125, which has received the poetical name of ‘Estrella do Sul’ or Star of the South. It is a singular fact that as yet this beautiful gem has brought good luck to none of its possessors. An old negro woman accidentally found it in a diamond mine at the Rio da Bagagem, in Minas Geraes, among a heap of pebbles that had been previously washed. She gave it to her master, who did not even reward her with her liberty, and superstition has traced all the ill-luck attached to the stone to that ungenerous act. The first proprietor of the diamond was a needy man, who for a trifling sum had been allowed by the proprietor of the mine to search for stones with the few slaves he possessed. The proprietor now claimed the diamond, alleging that it had not been found on the premises hired by the former; and a law suit, profitable of course to none but the lawyers, was the consequence. To be able to defend his cause, the possessor of the stone pawned it to the Brazilian Bank for about 8,000l., for which he had to pay fifteen per cent. commission and a high interest.
The law suit, as may naturally be supposed, lasted so long that the man died before it was decided, and but a very small sum of money remained to his widow. After passing through several hands, the stone was purchased at Rio for a million of francs, by a Dutch jeweller, who, to make up this considerable sum, was obliged to borrow money at the usual high interest of the place. He took the stone with him to Amsterdam, where it was cut, at an expense of about 4,000l. The great desideratum now was to find a purchaser for the magnificent jewel, which, however, did not prove of the first water. It was offered for sale to several crowned heads, and no princely bridal was allowed to pass without an attempt to dispose of the ‘Star of the South;’ but all efforts proved fruitless, for it seems that the monarchs of our days are of opinion that the exorbitant sums formerly paid for diamonds of an uncommon size may be invested in a much more profitable manner. The unfortunate speculator died of a broken heart. By the latest accounts the stone is still in Paris, held in pawn by a commercial house, which most probably will keep it, as the accumulated interest of years must of course absorb its whole value.
The uncut stone belonging to the King of Portugal, and weighing 1,680 carats, is now well known to be not, as was supposed, the greatest diamond in the world, but a mere white topaz. The quality of another stone of 138½ carats, found near the Rio Abaete in 1791, and likewise in the Portuguese treasury, has not been determined. So much, however, is certain, that the Portuguese Crown possesses (or possessed a few years ago) the richest collection of diamonds in the world, the value of which was estimated at about 3,000,000l.(?) Of all the stones annually sent to Lisbon by the General Intendant of the diamond districts, the king selected the largest and finest for the royal treasury, and the others were sold. When King Joao VI. returned in 1821 from Brazil to Portugal, he carried along with him almost as many diamonds as Voltaire’s Candide on his escape from Eldorado. The jewels were deposited in sealed bags in the vaults of the Lisbon Bank, where they remained forty years as a dead capital. In 1863 it was at length very wisely resolved, with the consent of the Cortes, to sell these rough diamonds, and to invest the proceeds for the benefit of the civil list.
Though diamonds are usually washed out from the soil, yet they also generally occur in regions that afford a laminated granular quartz rock, called Itacolumite, which in thin slabs is translucent and more or less flexible. This rock occurs in the mines of Brazil and the Urals, and also in Georgia and North Carolina, where a few diamonds have been found. Before taking leave of the prince of gems, I will not omit mentioning that it is not only the costliest of all ornaments, but serves also for several more humble though more useful purposes, as for cutting glass by the glazier, and all kinds of hard stones by the lapidary. Small drills are made either of imperfect diamonds, or of fragments split off from good stones in their manufacture for jewelling. They are used for drilling small holes in rubies and other hard stones, for piercing holes in china where rivets are to be inserted, or in any other vitreous substance, however hard. Diamonds have also been recently used for arming the end of the borer in a new rock-boring machine, for scooping out holes in the hardest rocks, such as granite and porphyry. The use of diamond dust within a few years has increased very materially with the increased demand for all articles wrought by it, such as cameos and intaglios.
The mineral substance that ranks next to the diamond, whether we estimate it by its hardness, the splendour of its colour, or its rareness, is that called by the mineralogists Corundum. It consists of pure crystallised alumina (the oxide of the now well-known metal aluminium), variously tinted by the addition of small quantities of iron or chromium. To this class belong the ruby, the sapphire, the topaz, the emerald, the amethyst, and other stones of gorgeous colour, distinguished by the epithet ‘oriental’ prefixed to the name.
The Oriental Ruby, or Red Sapphire, is the red stone par excellence of jewellery, and, from its fiery lustre, probably identical with the carbuncle of Pliny, and the anthrax or ‘burning coal’ of Theophrastus. Its finest colour is a most rich and lovely crimson, known as the pigeon’s blood tint; but its scarlet tints are also most beautiful. The red rays of the prism falling on a ruby produce a charming effect. Pegu is the land of rubies, and Australia now likewise furnishes stones of excellent quality. A perfect ruby above three and a half carats is more valuable than a diamond of the same weight. If it weigh one carat it is worth ten guineas; two carats, forty guineas; three carats, one hundred and fifty guineas; six carats, above one thousand guineas. The largest oriental ruby known to be in the world was brought from China to Prince Gagarin, Governor of Siberia. It came afterwards into the possession of Prince Menschikoff, and is now a jewel in the imperial crown of Russia.