130 THE GREAT DIAMONDS OF THE WORLD.
and
sent by him to England in custody of two officers." Thus this great
historical diamond passed with victory from East to West, and was
presented to the future Kaiser-i-Hind on June 3, 1850. It was shown at
the first great Exhibition held the following year in Hyde Park, on
which occasion it attracted a great deal of attention, although it had
been so unskilfully treated by the Indian cutter that it looked little
better than an ordinary crystal.
When
brought to Europe it was found to weigh exactly 186 1/16 carats. We
have seen that Baber gives the weight of Bikermajit's diamond at "
about eight mishkels," or somewhat over 187 carats, while Tavernier
repeatedly declares that the "Great Mogul '> was reduced by
Borgio to 279 carats. Again the two stones were of totally different
form, and the Mogul was without a history, having been quite recently
discovered in the Kollur mine, whereas authentic records carried the
"Koh-i-Nur" back to the year 1304, beyond which date it had a tradition
giving it an antiquity of some fifty centuries. Several recent writers
still, however, persist in regarding these two distinct stones as one
and the same gem. Even Professor Nicol, in the last edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, revives
this theory, and goes the length of suggesting that the " Great Mogul,"
the " Koh-i-Nur " and the stone found in Cucha in 1832, were all pieces
of one original crystal. Speaking of the " Koh-i-Nur," he remarks that
" its lower side is flat and undoubtedly corresponds to a cleavage
plane. Hence it has been conjectured that it and the Russian ' Orloff'
diamond are portions of the original stone belonging to the
