Page:A treatise on diamonds and precious stones including their history Natural and commercial.djvu/87

labor of a few minutes. When an opportunity presented itself, he sent a handful of the counters by a friend to Lisbon, for the purpose of having them examined; these were given to lapidaries (who never work diamonds, and perhaps had never seen one in its native state): they could only say, the stones were too hard for their tools. At length, by mere accident, the Dutch consul saw them; and gave his opinion that they were Diamonds. Some were immediately forwarded to Holland, where they were manufactured into brilliants, and pronounced to be diamonds, equal in quality to those from Golconda, or any other part of India. The returning fleet carried this favorable news, to Rio de Janeiro, whence it was rapidly communicated to the interior, and fortunate was the man who could procure a large share of these hitherto pretty pebbles—but now Diamonds. They were quickly bought up; and the counters, which had for a year or two been so carelessly handed about, became