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Sec. II, Ch. 5: The Brazilian Diamond

Sec. II, Ch. 5: The Brazilian Diamond Page of 366 Sec. II, Ch. 5: The Brazilian Diamond Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
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Brazilian Diamonds.
When Diamonds were first discovered in Bahia, the old capital of Brazil, which was at the time a densely-populated and fruitful province, the observant and intelli­gent Portuguese minister, the Marquis de Pombal, forbade further search, as he feared that agriculture, which he justly regarded as a source of blessing and health to the land, would suffer.
A very strange history is connected with the discovery of Diamonds in Bahia. An intelligent slave from Minas-Geräes, keeping his master's flocks in that province, thought he observed a similarity between the soil of his native place and that of Bahia. He sought therefore in the sand, and soon found 700 carats of Diamonds. Fleeing from his master he carried these with him, and offered them for sale in a distant city. Such wealth in the hands of a slave caused him to be arrested, but he would not betray himself. The master to whom he was given up tried to get at his secret by cunning, but without avail, until he thought of restoring to him his former occupation in Bahia, and watching him. As soon as the secret was known numbers flocked from Minas-Geräes and other parts of Brazil to Bahia, so that the following year as many as 25,000 people were occupied in seeking Diamonds there, and the amount daily secured for some time rose ~to about 1,400 or 1,500 carats.
The number of Diamond-seekers however, gradually dwindled to between five and six thousand ; but up to the end of the year 1849 there had been as many as 932,400 carats of Diamonds obtained from the Chapada of Bahia. This field is about eighty miles long and forty miles broad. The total produce from the entire Brazil Diamond districts was calculated up to the year 1850 to exceed 10,000,000 carats. In the year 1851 the produce appeared
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