an honest merchant, who disclosed to him the value of his treasure. The discovery was soon rumoured about; merchants and speculators crowded to the spot, and gems of the most extraordinary magnitude and beauty, the equal of which had never before been seen, were dug up out of the earth of this plain, and among others that famous diamond of Aurungzebe, which when rough weighed nine hundred carats. When they would judge of the water of a diamond, the Hindoos of Colour placed a lamp in a small aperture in a wall by night, and holding the stone between their fingers in the stream of light thrown out by the lamp, thought they could thus discern its beauties or defects more certainly than by day.
Upon his arrival at Colour upwards of sixty thousand persons, men, women, and children, were at work upon the plain, the men being employed in digging up the earth, and their wives and children in carrying it to the spot where it was sifted for the jewels. Nevertheless, many of the stones found here fell in pieces under the wheel; and a remarkably large one, which was carried to Italy by a Jew, and valued at thirty thousand piastres, burst into nine pieces while it was polishing at Venice.
The third mine, the most ancient in India, was situated near Sumbhulpoor, in Gundwana, at that period included, according to Tavernier, in the kingdom of Bengal. The diamonds were here found in the sands of the Mahanuddy, near its confluence with the Hebe; but our traveller strangely travesties the name of this river into Gouel, and, indeed, generally makes such havoc with names that there is often much difficulty in discovering what places are meant. However, when the great rains, which usually took place in December, were over, the river was allowed the whole month of January to clear, and shrink to its ordinary dimensions, when large beds of sand were left uncovered. The inhabitants
