|
AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA
the
small stones which formed the every-day yield, gave edge to appetite
and the spur to toil, and the stories of fortunes diverted from one man
to another by the lapse of a few minutes at the beginning or expiration
of a lease, or by the line separating the mining rights of one from
another, read like fairy tales. More exciting yet is the search for
them when, as in Brazil, they lie scattered over the river beds where
one man hunts in vain and another by chance stumbles upon a pocket
full, or as in India, where one must dig for them blindly into detrital
matter ten or twelve feet under a later covering of earth. Who has not
felt the stir of it while reading of miners in Brazil using diamonds
worth a king's ransom as counters in their games of chance, or of a
naked Hindu, emaciated and diseased carrying about his person, wrapped
in a bit of soiled cloth, a gem found by chance which the richest
prince of India would covet. So also do the tales of rubies brought
from Death's Valley of Burmah renew within us the glow which fired the
heart of youth when we read of Aladdin and his lamp.
19
|
||
|
|
||