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THE
DIAMONDS, COAL AND GOLD
OF INDIA.
—
CHAPTER I.
DIAMONDS.
To
say that India has for many years been famous for her diamonds would be
to enunciate a truism with which every one is familiar. It is not an
easy matter, however, to determine for how long this has been the case,
still less so to fix with approximate accuracy any period of the
world's history as being that when the precious gem first came to be
esteemed in the East. At least 3,400 years have elapsed since the first
account of it in the " Mahabaratta" (b.c. 1500)
was written—and it may have been known long previous to that. By some
it is thought that the Koh-i-nur belonged to King Vikramaditya (b.c. 56), a personage who seems to have been most ubiquitous, if a tithe of all that is said of him could be believed.
I
show below, when describing the diamond localities of Sambalpur, that
Ptolemy possessed a remarkable amount of information regarding them.
Tavernier
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