84 THE KOH --I-NUR.
of the stone, or we should be befogged by some further Oriental hyperbole.
The
emperor however says distinctly that the diamond weighed about eight
mishkals, which being interpreted means about one hundred and
eighty-six carats of our weight, or a little less than the Orloff and
fifty carats more than the Regent. It is mainly on the evidence of the
weight thus carefully recorded by Baber, that we identify the
Koh-i-nur, and can trace its subsequent career. On its arrival in
England its exact weight was found to be one hundred and eighty-six and
one-sixteenth carats, which agrees with the figure given by Baber as
afterwards computed by dependable authorities. When we consider the
extreme rarity of these great diamonds, coupled with the fact that no
two stones are of exactly the same weight, we may feel pretty safe in
concluding that Baber's " famous diamond " and our Koh-i nur are one
and the same stone, especially as henceforward its history is tolerably
consecutive.
