108 THE GREAT DIAMONDS OF THE WORLD.
Madras, where he was glad to dispose of the gem for £2,000, to an English sea captain, who brought it to London, where he sold it to a Jew for £12,000.
Here the story again becomes clouded, and in fact mixed up with the
adventures of the " Moon of Mountains." The Armenian, Shafrass, who, as
will be presently seen, had nothing to do with the " Orloff," is
suddenly introduced, instead of a Persian merchant, who purchased this
stone from the Jew, and brought it to Amsterdam. The merchant here
referred to was probably the notorious Khojeh Raphael, of Armenian
extraction, but born at Julfa, a suburb of Ispahan. This Khojeh was
some years afterwards met in Leghorn by the Persian traveller, Mirza
Abu Taleb Khan, who describes him as "a complete old scoundrel, who had
seen a great deal of the world, and understood a number of languages.
He had left Persia when a young man, and had gone by sea to Surat ;
thence across the peninsula to Bengal. After residing there some time
he made a voyage to England, and from that country went to Russia ; and
after travelling over great part of Europe, at length settled as a
merchant in Leghorn."*
It
was on his way from England to Russia that Khojeh met Prince Orloff in
Amsterdam, and induced him to purchase the Indian gem for his mistress,
the
