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160 THE DIAMOND
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to
be harder and better than all other so-called diamonds, and those wily
traders, having obtained diamonds from Africa, may have sold them as
Arabian stones in order to conceal the source of supply, and to secure
the advantage of the reputation which diamonds from the East had
already attained. The operations of the Phoenicians were widespread.
They went after the tin of Cornwall, the silver of the Guadalquiver,
and away to the north for amber. If rumor brought news of anything
anywhere that could be traded in profitably, they went after it. They
circumnavigated Africa 600 years B. C. They probably knew that there
was gold and other minerals in that country; they knew what diamonds
were, for they traded in Indian stones. It is possible, and even quite
probable, that they brought gold from Africa, and equally probable that
diamonds were found with the gold. If so, they would not escape the
observation of such keen traders, and the Indian and Arabian stones
having the reputation of being much superior to all other stones called
diamond, the African diamonds would undoubtedly be marketed with those
from the East and under the same classification.
Whether
the Phoenicians obtained stones from Africa or not, they not only
bought and sold Indian stones, but those stones had evidently been
known and used for some time and therefore had been regularly mined
then in India.
The
diamonds of India occur in alluvial deposits which carry gold also.
From before records, gold was always sought, and it is probable that in
the remote past, men there, as elsewhere later, while mining fox gold,
attracted by the crystals glistening in the sands, saved
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