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DIAMONDS. 27
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All these 30 leagues (i.e., from
Rhotas to Soumelpour) you travel through woods, which is a very
dangerous passage, as being very much pestered with robbers.
The
Raja lives half a league from the town, in tents set upon a fair rising
ground, at the foot whereof runs the Gouel, descending from the
southern mountains, and falling into the Ganges.
In
this river they find the diamonds. For after the great rains are over,
which is usually in December, they stay all January till the river be
clear, by reason that by that time in some places it is not above two
feet deep, and in several places the sand lies above the water.
About
the end of January or the beginning of February, there flock together
out of the great town, and some others adjoining, about eight thousand
persons, men, women, and children, that are able to work. They that are
skilful know by the sand whether there be any diamonds or no, when they
find among the sand little stones like to those we call
"thunderstones." They begin to make search in the river from the town
of Soumelpour to the very mountains from whence the river falls for
fifty leagues together.
Where
they believe there are diamonds, they encompass the place with stakes,
faggots and earth, as when they go about to make the arch of a bridge,
to drain all the water out of that place. Then they dig out all the
sand for two feet deep, which is all carried and spread upon a great
place for that purpose prepared upon the side of the river, encompassed
with a little wall about a foot-and-a half high.
When
they have filled this place with as much sand as they think convenient,
they throw water upon it, wash it, and sift it, doing in other things
as they do at the mines, which I have above described.
From
this river come all those fair points which are called natural points ;
but a great stone is seldom found here. The reason why none of these
stones have been seen in Europe, is because of the wars that have
hindered the people from working.
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