"The stone is said to be of the finest water. An outline of the model gives a maximum length of 1 inch 10.25 lines, and 1 inch 2 lines for the greatest breadth, with comfortable thickness throughout. The face is slightly convex, and the cleavage plane, produced by the fracture, is nearly flat, with a curious slope or groove beginning at the apex. The general appearance is an imperfect oval, with only one projection which will require the saw. It is not unlike a Chinese woman's foot without the toes, and it will easily cut into a splendid brilliant, larger and more valuable than the present Koh-i-noor.
"I can hardly wonder at this stone being ignored in England and in India, when little is known about it at Hyderabad. No one could tell me its weight in grains or carats. The highest authority in the land vaguely said 'about two ounces or three hundred carats.'[10] The blacksmith who made the mould was brought to us, and the rascal showed a bit of wood shaped much like a clove of orange. Finally, I was driven to accept the statement of Mr. Briggs (i. 117): 'Almost all the finest jewels in India have been gradually collected at Hyderabad, and have fallen into the Nizam's possession, and are considered State property. One uncut diamond alone of three hundred and seventy-five carats is valued at thirty lakhs of rupees, and has been mortgaged for half that money.'
"Let us now estimate the value of the Nizam diamond. For uncut stones we square the weight (375 x 375 = 140,625) and multiply the product by £2, which gives a sum of £281,250. For cut stones the process is the same, only the multiplier is raised from £2 to £8. Thus, supposing a loss of 75 carats, which would reduce 375 to 300 (300 x 300 = 90,000 x £8), we obtain a total value of £720,003.
"Allow me briefly to compare the Nizam diamond (uncut 375 carats, cut 370) with the historic stones of the world. The list usually begins with the Pitt or Regent, the first cut in Europe. When the extraneous matter was removed in unusual quantities, it was reduced to 136¾ carats, valued from £141,058 to £160,000. The famous or infamous Koh-i-noor originally gauged 900 carats; it was successively reduced to 279 or 280 (Tavernier) and to 186¼ (= £276,768) when exhibited in Hyde Park; its last treatment has left it at 162½ carats. Then we have the Grand Duke's or Austrian, of 139½ carats (= £153,682); the Orloff or Russian (rose cut) of 195 (193?) carats; and the Abaïté, poetically called the 'Estrella do Sul' (Star of the South), weighing 120 carats. The 'Stone of the Great Mogul,' mentioned by Tavernier, is probably that now called the Daryá-i-noor: it weighs 279 9/16 carats, and graces the treasury of the Shah. The nearest approach to 'The Nizam' is the Mattan or Laudah diamond of 376 carats. Experts agree to ignore the Braganza, whose 1680 carats are calculated to be worth £5,644,800: the stone is kept with a silly mystery which makes men suspect that it is a white topaz.
"And now to notice the diamond diggings of India, and especially of Golconda, their ancient history and their modern state. I will begin by stating my conclusions. Diamonds have been found in the Ganges Valley: they are still washed as far north as Sambalpúr, and in the Majnodi, an influent of the Mahanadi, on the Upper Narbada (Nerbudda), on the line of the Godaveri and on the whole course of the Krishna. The extreme points would range between Masulipatam and the Ganges Valley; the more limited area gives a depth from north to south of some 5º (= three hundred direct geographical miles), beginning north from the Central Provinces and south from the Western Gháts, a breadth averaging about the same extent, and a superficies of ninety thousand miles. A considerable part of this vast space is, I need hardly say, almost unexplored, and the sooner we prospect it the better. The curious reader will find the limits laid down in the 'General Sketch,' etc., of British India, by G. B. Greenough, F.R.S.
"The history of the diamond in India begins with the Maharabháta (B.C. 2100). The Koh-i-noor is supposed to have belonged to King Vikramaditya (B.C. 56), and to a succession of Moslem princes (A.D. 1306), till it fell into the hands of the Christians. Henry Lord's 'Discovery of the Banian Religion' quaintly relates how 'Shuddery' (Sudra), the third son of Pourvus (Purusha), 'findeth a mine of diamonds,' and engenders a race of miners—this is going back with a witness, teste Menu. At what period India invented the cutting of the stone we are yet unable to find out; the more civilized Greeks and Romans ignored, it is suspected, the steel wheel. The Indian diamond was first made famous in Europe by the French jeweller, Jean Baptiste Tavernier (born 1605, died 1689), who made six journeys to the Peninsula as a purchaser of what he calls the Iri (hira).
"Tavernier's travels are especially interesting to diamond-diggers, because he visited the two extreme points, north and south. He began with 'Raulconda,' in the Carnatic, some five days south of Golconda (Hyderabad), and eight or nine marches from Vizapore (hodie Bijapur). In 1665 the diggings were some two hundred years old, and they still employed sixty thousand hands. The traveller's description of the sandy earth, full of rocks, and 'covered with coppice-wood, nearly similar to the environs of Fontainebleau,' is perfectly applicable to the Nizam's country about Hyderabad. The diamond veins ranged from half an inch to an inch in thickness, and the precious gangue was hooked out with iron rods. Some of the stones were valued at two thousand, and even at sixteen thousand crowns, and the steel wheel was used for cutting. He then passed on to the Ganee diggings, which the Persians call Coulour (hod. Burkalún), also belonging to the King of Golconda. They lay upon the river separating the capital from Bijapur. This must be the Bhima influent of the Krishna, and the old jeweller notices the 'corracles' which are still in use. The discovery began about A.D. 1565 with a peasant finding a stone gauging twenty-five carats. Here, we are told, appeared the Koh-i-noor (nine hundred carats), which 'Mirzimolas,' or 'Mirgimola,' the 'Captain of the Mogols,' presented to the Emperor Aurungzeb. The sixty thousand hands used to dig to the depth of ten, twelve, or fourteen feet, but as soon as they meet with water there is no hope of success. Tavernier then records the fact that the king closed perforce half a dozen diggings between 'Coulour and Raulconda, because for thirty or forty years the yield of black and yellow had given rise to frauds.' The Frenchman's last visit was to 'Soumelpore' (Sambalpur), 'a town of Bengala, on the river Gowel,' a northern affluent of the Mahanadi. The season for washing the diamantiferous land began in early February, when the waters ran clear; other authors make it extend from November to the rainy season; and the eight thousand hands extended their operations to fifty kos up-stream. Gold and the finest diamonds in India—locally called 'Brahmans'—were found in the river-bed and at the mouth of the various feeders.
"So far Tavernier. In 1688 and 1728 the well-known Captain Hamilton ('New Account,' etc.), in his twenty-ninth chapter, treating of 'Maderass, or China-Patam,' describes the diamond mines, evidently those of Partiál in the Northern Circars, as being distant a week's journey from Fort St. George; and he records the fact that the Pitt diamond was there brought to light.
"The precious stone was practically limited to Hindustan and Borneo before A.D. 1728, when diggings were opened in Brazil. At first the new produce was rejected by the public, till it found out that many Indian stones from the New World were sent to Goa, and thence were exported to Europe. Still the general view was not wholly wrong. The specific gravity of the diamond averages 3.6, and the difference of oxide in the crystallized or allotropic carbon does not exceed a third place of decimals. This, however, makes all the difference in lustre; and, even in England, we have lately found out that a small brilliant of perfect water, hung to the ear, for instance, is far more effective than a stone much superior in size but inferior in quality. The public, perhaps, do not remember that as far back as 1868 my study of the formations which bear the Brazilian diamonds enabled me to forecast that the gem would be found in a variety of places where its existence had never been suspected. Thus, to mention no others, they were washed in the Cudgegong river, near Rylston, New South Wales; the Australian Diamond Company failed, however, probably by bad management, to pay its expenses. It has been otherwise with the South African diggings, which began with the Vaal river; the stones are inferior even to those of the Brazil, yet they have reduced the value of the latter by one-third. When another great revolution or other political trouble shall occur, the diamond will recover its old market price.
"'The diamond mines of Golconda,' says Mr. Briggs (ch. vi.), 'derive their name from being in the kingdom of Golconda, and not from being near the Fort. They are at the village of Purteeali (Partiál), near Condapilly, about one hundred and fifty miles from Hyderabad, on the road to Masulipatam.[11] The property of them was reserved by the late Nizam when he ceded the Northern Circars to the English Government. They are superficial excavations not extending ten or twelve feet deep in any part. For some years past the working of them has been discontinued, and there is no tradition of their having ever produced very valuable stones.'