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THE AUSTRIAN YELLOW. 219
carefully
examined. The circumstances were decidedly adverse to the beauty of a
diamond, for it was in the half-light of a London fog that we saw it,
yet the stone seemed literally to shoot tongues of yellow fire from its
facets. It was a round brilliant, and being set in a circle of about a
score of white diamonds its tawny complexion was shown to admirable
advantage. The jewel was supported on a delicate spring which vibrated
with each step upon the floor, so that there was a constant coruscation
of light around it.
It
is difficult to establish the early history of the Austrian Yellow".
Tavernier saw it in Florence somewhere about 1642, but he does not say
whence it came. Its appearance proves it to be an Indian-cut rose, but
that does not help us much with regard to its private wanderings in
Europe. A good authority on diamonds, de Laet, who flourished shortly
before Tavernier's time, declared that the largest diamond then known
weighed seventy carats, which would clearly indicate that he knew
nothing about the
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