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22- PRECIOUS STONES
the
great diamond among them, to Khorassan. All accounts of the " Great
Mogul" diamond from that time are speculative. In 1747 Nadir Shah was
assassinated.
There
is no authentic account of the " Orloff" until it appeared in
Amsterdam in 1791 and was sold to Count Orloff. From that time it has
been among the Russian crown jewels.
Tavernier
mentions having seen a diamond at Golconda in 1642, weighing two
hundred and forty-two and five-sixteenths carats. (The "Great Mogul"
had probably been cut at this time.) It was in the hands of merchants
who asked five hundred thousand rupees (about two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars) for it. This was similar in shape but apparently
uncut and larger than the " Koh-i-noor" as it came into the hands of
the English.
In
1739 Nadir Shah carried off the treasures of Delhi to Persia. In 1747
he was assassinated by his subjects, partly from jealousy of the
Afghans, who were in great favor with him. One of these, Ahmed Shah,
who had been Nadir's treasurer, fleeing with his countrymen, took with
him the " Koh-i-noor." He founded a new empire in Cabul. The diamond
was among his jewels when he died in 1793. It remained with his
successors until Shah Zemaun was driven from the throne by his
half-brother Mahmood. He carried it with him in his flight, and, though
captured, succeeded in concealing the diamond. By a later revolution
Zemaun was released and the stone was brought from its hiding-place. In
1808 it was seen upon the person of Shuja, of the same dynasty, by Mr.
Elphinstone, British envoy to the king of Cabul. In 1813 Runjeet Singh,
chief of the Sikhs, obtained it from Shuja and brought it to Lahore.
After the murder of Shir Singh, one of the successors of Runjeet, it
remained in the Lahore treasury until the annexation of that country by
the British government. The treasury and property of that country were
then confiscated to the East India Company, in part payment of a debt
due to them by the La-
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