Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
There are stories, strange, tragic, humorous or romantic, about all the great stones. Diamonds above all others have attracted to themselves innumerable histories beyond the dreams of mere imagination.
Consider the ‘Braganza,’ the size of a goose’s egg and said to have weighed 1680 carats in the rough. The full story is to be found in Mawe’s Travels in Brazil, but here are the main facts. Three men, whose names were Antonio de Sousa, Jose Felix Gomez and Thomas de Sousa, having been found guilty of various crimes, were banished into the interior of Brazil and forbidden to approach the capital towns or remain in civilized society on pain of perpetual imprisonment. Brazil is very vast and much of its territory is even yet not fully explored. Driven into the unfrequented wilds, the banished men determined to discover and exploit new mines, in the hope that if they were able to make valuable discoveries it would lead to a reversal of their hard sentences. They wandered about for some six years, until at last, coming in a dry season to the exposed river bed of the Abaite, a few leagues to the north of the Rio Plata, they there washed for gold and discovered the big diamond.
They forthwith consulted a priest about the course they should take, who advised them to trust to the mercy of the State, and himself accompanied them to Villa Rica, where the Governor, on hearing the story and seeing the evidence of their good fortune, suspended their sentences.
The gem was then sent to Rio de Janeiro, whence a frigate took it to Lisbon. The priest who had originally advised the surrender of the gem went with it to Portugal, presumably hoping for preferment, and the Portuguese King was sufficiently impressed with his new possession to pardon the exiles, confirming the Governor’s action, and advance the pertinacious cleric. The stone, is however, said to have been allowed to remain in its uncut state, and Rome Delisle gave its value at 300 millions sterling, an astronomically large and almost incredible sum. In his memoir on this diamond Murray says that Don John VI had a hole drilled in the stone and wore it suspended round his neck on gala days. Of its recent history there is none to say. Presumably it is still in the Portuguese treasury, for all the information to the contrary, but no outsider knows for certain. Enquiries are not appreciated by those in authority, possibly because, as some suggest, the gem is not a diamond at all, but a white topaz. If that were indeed true, successive Portuguese Governments may have thought it politic to preserve the legend of the great Braganza by saying nothing to dispel the illusion surrounding their great national possession. Certainly Barbot, who saw the stone, describes it as being of a dark yellow color, which possibly suggests a topaz. The date of its discovery by the three outcasts is variously given as 1741, 1764, and 1797.
A diamond that has always remained in the possession of a native prince is the ‘Matan’, so called because it belongs to the Rajah of Matan, in Dutch Borneo. It was found in 1787 in the Landak mines N.E of Pontianak, among the oldest known and, before the opening of the Rand mines, probably also the most productive in the world. As far back as 1738 the Dutch exported from this district some 300,000 dollars worth of diamonds. Sir Stamford Raffles wrote of that time: ‘Few courts of Europe could boast of a more brilliant display of diamonds than did the Dutch ladies of Batavia in the prosperous days.’ All these diamonds came from Borneo. For over a century the Chinese worked those mines, but they were so cruel and tyrannous in their treatment of the Dyaks, natives of the country, that in the end the latter rebelled and massacred the Chinese almost to a man.
When found, the Matan diamond weighed 367 carats. It is described as being the size of an average walnut (favorite description of very large diamonds, for some reason) and of a bluish metallic luster. It has never been cut. The Dutch Government were very anxious to buy it, and the Governor of Batavia is said to have offered 150000 dollars plus two large war brigs, with full complement of guns and other war material, but the native prince refused the offer. It is still in the Sultan’s treasury, but for fear of arousing the cupidity of scheming despoilers it is not now shown. Occasionally, to gratify the curiosity of exalted visitors, the Rajah displays a crystal replica. When it was still being shown, the Matan was variously valued at anything between £270000 and 350000 sterling.
To its owners the Matan had, like many another great gem, the added virtue of possessing miraculous powers. The water in which it is dipped when the medicine chest of the Rajah’s household requires replenishing is reputed to be a sure cure for life’s ills.
Another great diamond remaining in the hands of a native prince, also still uncut is the ‘Nizam’, property of the Nizam of Hydrerabad, in whose territory were the great mines of Golconda, famous source of the diamonds of the ancients and of medieval men. The Nizam’s ancestors were styled ‘Kings of Golconda’. The Nizam diamond weighs 340 carats and its value was many years ago stated to be £200000, but large as the stone is, it is only part of a bigger stone which before fracturing weighed 440 carats.
A modern gem was the ‘Stewart’ diamond. It was found in 1872 by a man named Spalding in an outside claim (diggings), before the South African Rand had become an El Dorado for diamond miners. Spalding was so overcome by his find that he could neither eat or drink for three full days. Or so it was said. This stone weighed 288 3/8 carats in the rough, was consigned to an important London firm, and since no more transpires, was presumably sold by them to someone who preferred to remain the anonymous owner of a two-ounce diamond.
No comments:
Post a Comment