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Brazilian Diamonds.
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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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