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THE MYSTERY STONE
The
River Kistna Sows from the Western Ghats mountain range of India to the
Bay of Bengal. Along the eight-hundred-mile length ot the river are a
great number of water-filIed pits, now "dead" mines, which a few
hundred years ago yielded several million dollars' worth of diamonds.
To
the hanks of the rivet, in the latter part of the seventeenth century,
came a man named Jean Baptiste Tavernier, who spent forty years of his
life searching, writing about, and selling, precious stones. He was a
gem detective who, once having heard of an important diamond or ruby or
other stone, could not rest until he had tracked it down. Now along the
Kistna he began to hear tales of a mighty rough diamond that once had
been found in the vicinity. These stories, if true, meant he was on the
trail of the biggest rough gem stone man ever had found up to that
time.
At
last he came to the Kollur mine. Descendants of men who used to work
there said that they, indeed, had heard of such a stone. When found it
had weighed, according to word passed along by an older generation,
exactly 787-1/2 carats.
But it long since had left the vicinity. The natives said that years
before it had come into the possession of the Emir Jemla, who farmed
the famous diamond mines. He had been very wealthy and was Vizier to
the King of Gol-conda, but court intrigue forced him to flee to Delhi,
where he placed himself under the protection of Shah Jehan, the Grand
Mogul.
As we already know, Shah Jehan was a lover of jewels and splendor. Was it not he who caused to have erected the costly and beautiful Taj Mahal as a memorial to his favorite
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