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the miners have fixed upon the place where they intend to dig, they level another, somewhat larger, in the same neighbourhood, and enclose it with a wall about two feet high, only leaving apertures from space to space, to give passage to the water. The place being thus prepared, the people that are to work meet all together, men, women, and children, with the workmaster, his friends and relations But before any thing is done, a superstitious ceremony is performed to render their labours propitious. The only passive personage in this ceremony is a little household god which the master brings with him, and be fore which the people prostrate themselves three times, while the brahman says a certain prayer.

This being ended, he marks the forehead of every one with a kind of glue, made of saffron and gum, and is careful that the spot is large enough to hold seven or eight grains of rice, which he sticks upon it. Their bodies are then washed with the water which every one brings in his pot; after which they arrange themselves in order to partake of the repast which the workmaster has prepared for them. This is merely a plate of rice to each person, with the addition of a quarter of a pound of butter melted in a small copper pot with some sugar.

After the feast is finished, every person proceeds to his business; the men digging the earth in the place first discovered, and the women and children carrying it off into the other, or walled, enclosure. When they find water they cease to dig; and the water thus found washes the earth two or three times; after which it is let out at an aperture reserved for that purpose. When the earth has been washed again, and well dried, they sift it in a kind of open sieve; which operation is repeated before they begin to look for diamonds.

Another mine which Tavernier speaks of as famous for its diamonds, is the bed of the river Goual, near

Soumelpour, a large town built entirely of earth, and covered with branches of cocoa trees. The river Goual runs within a mile of the town, in its way from the mountains towards the Ganges. All our fine diamond points or sparks, called natural sparks, are brought from this river, where they are collected as soon as the great rains are over, which is about the end of December.

As soon in January as the water is grown clear, eight or ten thousand persons, of all ages and both sexes, come out of Soumelpour and the neighbouring villages. The most experienced among them search and examine the sand of the river, going up from Soumelpour to the very mountain whence it springs. Those who are used to this business know by the sand whether any diamonds are likely to be found or not; and judge it a favourable sign when they find a number of those stones which we call thunder stones at the bottom of the river. When they have reason to believe that the produce will pay them for their labour, they proceed to take up the sand, first making a dam round the place with stones, earth, and fascines, and then lading out the water. After this is done, they dig about two feet deep; and the sand thus procured is carried into a place walled round on the bank of the river, where it is washed and sifted in the same manner as at Coulour.

Magellan tells us, that the greatest diamond ever known in the world is one belonging to the king of Portugal, which was found in Brasil, and is still uncut. This gentleman was informed, from good authority, that it was once of a larger size, but that a piece was cleaved or broken by the ignorant countryman who chanced to find the gem, and tried its hardness by a stroke of a large hammer upon an anvil. This prodigious diamond weighs 1,680 carats ;* and although

* A carat weighs four grains.

it is uncut, Romé de l'Isle says, it is valued at 224 millions sterling.

This appears to be an incredible sum, and probably the valuation is erroneous: but even supposing that to be the case, and that we employ the usual methods laid down for computing the worth of these jewels, the sum will be immense; as, in this way, it will amount to at least 5,644,800 pounds sterling!

The diamond which is next in value adorns the sceptre of the emperour of Russia, and is placed under the eagle at the top of it. This stone weighs 779 carats, and is worth, at least, 4,854,720 pounds sterling, although it hardly cost 135,417 guineas. A singular history is attached to this diamond. It was formerly one of the eyes of a Malabarian idol, named Scheringham. A French gre nadier, who had deserted from the Indian service, contrived to become one of the priests of that idol, and, watching his opportunity, stole its eye, and ran away to the English at Trinchinapeuly, from whence he carried it to Madras. A ship captain bought it for twenty thousand rupees; afterwards a Jew gave seventeen or eighteen thousand pounds for it; at last, a Greek merchant, named Gregory Suffras, offered it to sale at Amsterdam, in the year 1766, where it was bought by prince Orloff for his sovereign, the empress of Russia. The figure and size of this diamond is preserved in the British Museum. The diamond of the Great Mogul weighs 279 carats, and is said to be worth 380,000 guineas. This diamond has a small flaw underneath near the bottom. Before this stone was cut, Tavernier tells us it weighed 900 carats; consequently its loss in cutting must be considerable.

Another diamond, in the possession of the king of Portugal, which weighs 215 carats, is extremely fine, and worth at least 369,8007.

The famous diamond which belonged to the late king of France,

VOL. II.

called the Pitt, or Regent, weighs nearly 137 carats, and has been valued at 208,333 guineas, although it did not cost above half that sum. This beautiful gem was found in the diamond mines at the foot of the Gaut mountains, about twenty miles from Golconda. Another diamond belonging to the same monarch, called the Sancy, was reckoned a very fine stone, though it weighs only 55 carats. It cost 25,000 guineas, but is said to be worth a much larger sum. We must not omit to mention the dia. mond of the emperour of Germany, which weighs 139 carats, and is valued at 109,520 guineas. It is of a light citron colour.

It is well known that the diamond is the hardest of all precious stones, and only to be cut by the assistance of its own powder. We are informed, that to bring it to the degree of perfection which so much augments its price, they begin by rubbing several against each other while rough, after having previously glued them to the ends of two wooden blocks, thick enough to be held in the hand. The powder which is rubbed off the stones in this operation is caught in a little box provided for that purpose, and afterwards used to grind and polish the stones. From the extreme hardness of these stones it has been alleged, that rubbing them against each other is the only way to reduce them to an impalpable powder; but this is not strictly the case, as the jeweliers are in the habit of pounding small pieces in steel mortars fitted with a pestle exactly the size of the interiour, so that none of the diamond can escape. A few blows with the hammer upon the head of the pestle completely powder the stone.

Diamonds are more or less valuable according to what is called their water.

Those of the first water are in the greatest degree of purity and perfection, while those of less brilliancy are said to be of the second or third water; and thus they proceed till the

r

stone becomes coloured; for there are diamonds of all colours, though faintly tinted. Thus we have some

of a rose colour; others green, blue, brown, black; and some are marked with black spots.

FROM THE MONTHLY ANTHOLOGY AND BOSTON REVIEW.

Letter from an American Traveller in Europe to his Friends in this country. Rome, January 30, 1805.

SINCE I last wrote you, we have retraced our steps to this city, and are now as busy as the worst weather will permit us in reviewing the most select and interesting parts of its antiquities and curiosities, or in visiting those which escaped us before Never, perhaps, at so short a distance, and under the same climate, was a difference so striking in the manners and habits of cities, as that which exists between Naples and Rome.

The former is the most busy, lively, crowded, gay, dissipated city in the world. The latter resembles the still, grand, but interesting solemnity of some ancient but splendid abbey. Every thing in the former exhibits man as he is, a bustling, active, thoughtless being, pursuing phantoms, seeking pleasure which he never can find, and driving away, by the hurry of the present, the thought of the future. All the objects in the latter recall man as he has been; his former greatness; his present humility; his false grandeur; his proud but vain desire of terrestrial immortality; his luxury and his poverty; his power and weakness; the durability of Providence, and the perpetual mutability of man. At Rome every thing is still, quiet, solemn as the sepulchres of the kings and heroes which it encloses. The society at Naples is vastly more interesting, particularly for the English residents. Many English or American families, whose manners correspond to our own, and whose houses are seats of general hospitality, make the time pass off very agreeably. Its climate attracts strangers from every part of

Europe, and you meet, on a footing extremely pleasant, gentlemen and ladies of rank and character from almost every nation. Amidst a great variety of characters which one would expect to find in a place so mixed, there were two whose history attracted my notice, and whose biographical sketches were to us extremely interesting.

One is an old octogenarian gentleman, who is still known by a title, which he had, I presume, about fifty years ago, Governour Ellis. This title he derived from having been a governour of Georgia, in the United States, under the royal government. He served many years as a naval officer under the grandfather of George III. who, you will recollect, is now turned of sixty. He performed a circumnavigatory voyage before Cook, and that celebrated navigator served under him in an inferiour station. His voyages will be found under the name of Ellis's Voyages round the World, in Mavor's collection, and I dare say, that many of us, in reading it, have supposed the man to have been buried for half a century past.

For the last thirty years he has retired to Naples to pass the residue of his life. Till within a few years he has passed his summers in journies to Russia and the north, and his winters in the south, preserving by that means a perpetual summer, extremely favourable to longevity. For the last twenty years he has abstained from animal food, but has supplied the want of it by a very strong soup, which, with a single glass of wine, forms his constant diet.

He is extremely fond of society, and whenever there is a ball or con

verzazione the governour generally passes an hour in it. He retains his faculties fully, which are of a superiour grade. He is an elegant classick scholar, and his language in common conversation is a perfect model for an accomplished man. He has a great turn for poetry, which he repeats with astonishing memory whenever requested. He did me the favour to lend me a satire on manners, which he has just finished. He lived in the house with a Russian princess, whom I shall soon notice. She was no youth, having nearly reached her ninetieth year. The gallant old gentleman wrote a few couplets in compliment to his youthful neighbour, at which she, however, took offence, observing that she did not choose to be the subject of publick notice, even in complimentary canzonets. I heard the old gentleman complain of this failure of return for his gallantry.

This princess was as extraordinary a character as the governour. She like him had retired to milder skies to reinvigorate her decaying fabrick. She was the most hospitable foreigner at Naples. Her house was one of the pleasantest resorts for all strangers of character who visited the city. Her ruling passion was gay society, and never did a woman exhibit the truth of Pope's sentiment more truly. Hers was never stronger than in death. For many weeks before her death, it was known to herself and every one around her, that she would soon die; but she expressed a strong wish that she might survive the first day of the new year, because she was resolved to give a brilliant fête on that day. She died, I believe, before; but as she was in the habit of receiving her friends on certain days, who amused themselves with cards, &c.

she insisted that it should be continued during her illness; and in fact after she was speechless, the night of her death, she had a party who took leave of her, and she died before morning!!! To finish the scene, as it commenced, according to the fashion of great people in this country, her body was exposed in state, as it is termed, for three days, and was there visited by those friends whom her living hospitality had contributed to amuse.

I met several times in Naples a young German officer, whose history was very interesting to me, not only as it was wonderful in itself but as it proves that the Austrians did not yield the palm to the French in point of bravery. I have always believed, that numbers, rather than courage or conduct, achieved the victories of France. This young officer was of the first family in Germany. He is one of the princes of the Lichtenstein family. He commanded a regiment of cavalry in the Austrian service, and as he was of high rank, his regiment was a large one. It consisted of eighteen hundred men. As it suffered in engagements, it was, constantly recruited; so that in the course of that short war he lost out of that regiment, whose complement was only eighteen hundred men, nine thousand seven hundred; I repeat it, nine thousand seven hundred; and he and another officer are the only ones surviving in the regiment, who first engaged in it this last war. The prince has received many severe wounds, and is now in Italy for his health. He is not, I think, more than thirty years of age. I think these three characters well worthy of no tice. They certainly do not occur at every corner.

ANECDOTES.

The following anecdotes respecting Scot tish manners are extracted from Hall's Travels in Scotland, a late work.

IT was, and still is a custom in many places in the Highlands, that whoever comes into a house after a person dies, and before such person is interred, as also after a child is born till it is baptized, must eat and drink in the house before they leave it.

This being the custom, to save expenses, and because they think it disrespectful to God to have an unbaptized child in the house, poor people generally have their children as soon baptized as possible. But it happened once to a poor man in this part of the country, that a river, as is often the case, ran between his house and the clergyman's, so that neither the poor man could get to the clergyman, nor the clergyman to the poor man's, in order to have the child baptized. The river was swoln by the gradual melting of the snow, and there was no bridge within twenty miles. The poor man's cheese, his bread, &c. was nearly expended. He, therefore, on the one side of the river, and the clergyman on the other, consulting what was to be done, agreed that the child should be brought to the river side; that the father, presenting the child, should take on the vows, as they term it, and the minister with a scoop, or Dutch ladle, should throw over the water: which was done, though with difficulty, owing to the breadth of the river; after which, the clergyman pronounced the name; prayed aloud, so as to be heard by the parent and his attendants on the other side; after which each went to their respective places perfectly satisfied with this new mode of baptism, and that, if the child died in infancy, it would go to heaven.

Being invited to dine with a gentleman near Auldern, when I was praising the sallad, which I found extremely good, he said, smiling: "You

need not be afraid, it is not dressed with castor oil." Upon inquiring what he alluded to, he told me that a gentleman and his lady, in the neighbourhood, who sometimes, as is the case in inland places, where there are no resident doctors, when any of their tenants are sick, recommend an emetick, or the like, to them, and at their own expense afford the medicine. This gentleman, having an appeal to the house of peers, about a large estate, was at London; and, as he gained the process, and was about to return to Scotland, he bought some gallons of castor oil, to lie at his house, and be served out as occasion should require. Upon his arrival in Scotland, as it is natural, all the no. bility and gentry, who were acquainted with him, came to dine with him, and congratulate him and the family on so many thousand pounds yearly being added to their fortune. When mostly all the genteel families for twenty miles round, had paid their compliments to him in this manner, and he and his lady found leisure to hear the complaints of those sick people that applied to them, he found that some castor oil might be useful to a person that had come to consult them. Upon this, he rang the bell for John, the servant, who appearing, and being desired to bring some castor oil, replied: "It is all done." "Done!" replied the gentleman, “do not you know there is a keg of it lately come from London?" "Yes, but if it please you honour, that one is done too." "How can that be?" replied the gentleman, in a passion. "Why, sir, you have had such a round of company almost every day since it came, and always sallad at table, that it is all gone." "Don't you

know, it is castor oil I want, and that the name is written in large letters on the cask?" "So it is," replied the servant, "but as your honour knows, it was for the CASTORS, and dressing the sallad: it is all gone." "O you

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