THE GREAT MOGUL. 199
ter
— for some go so far as to suggest that the Great Mogul was a white
topaz! The fact that we now cannot find the diamond is no sufficient
reason for denying its former existence.
In
the account of Queen Victoria's diamond, the Koh-i-nur, we made
acquaintance with the court of Delhi; to its complicated records we
must return for the Great Mogul. It is scarcely needful to state this
name is a fanciful one bestowed on the lost gem by European writers;
Tav-ernier gives it no distinct name in his description.
Shah
Jehan ( Lord of the World ) who reigned in the middle of the
seventeenth century was, as we have already seen, the husband of the
beautiful Nur Jehan (Light of the World) who bore him four sons and
two daughters.
As
the King grew older his sons grew stronger, and fearing that they would
not be able to dwell together in amity at Delhi the old monarch gave
distant governments to three of his sons, in order to keep the young
men apart from one another, and at a safe distance from himself. In
