Albert Ramsay (Albert Ramsay & Co, 1925) writes:
During my return trip from the mines I was afforded an opportunity to test the theory of psychologists to the effect that our subconscious minds control our involuntary actions and the result seemed to verify their contention. When we had arrived within about two miles of Thabeitkin I decided to walk the balance of the distance alone in hopes of bagging a bird or two for breakfast. I was proceeding quietly when a peculiar rustling in the bushes beside the road attracted my attention. Man eating tiger!—such was the thought that darted through my mind, bringing with it the recollection of the tragedy at Thabeitkin and my former fear, not dead but sleeping, sprang into life with renewed vigor. I felt instinctively that nothing but a tiger could have made that sound. Before I could budge the tomb-like silence of the jungle was shattered by a crash as of some heavy body precipitating itself through the underbrush. I then comprehended what the writers of ‘thrillers’ mean when they say: ‘His hair stood on end.’ My brain refused to function; my feet were rooted to the ground; my eyes were hypnotically fixed upon the spot from whence the tawny brute was about to spring. I stood thus transfixed, with beads of cold perspiration trickling down my forehead for what seemed an age but was, as a matter of fact, a few seconds, before the bushes parted and there appeared—not the striped form I had expected but the tusks of an elephant. Another moment and the chain which he wore upon one of the hind legs became visible, branding him a tame work-beast employed by the natives in the transportation of teakwood logs. I suddenly went as limp as a balloon tire which has formed a mesalliance with a nail and before my legs had received the bulletin flashed from my mental control station I was establishing new records for all distances up to and including two miles. Whether my failure to conduct myself in a normal manner immediately after the truth was discovered was due to exceptionally fast feet or to an unusually slow brain, is a matter of conjecture. At any rate I barely missed going right through the village and into the river.
Being desirous of adding to my collection of sapphires I turned my attention to the mines of Ceylon. Approaching Ceylon across the Bay of Bengal the empyrean dome of the firmament is apparently supported by the peaks of the mountains which rise sheer from the ocean’s depths. As the intervening distance decreases, more and more of the island becomes visible until finally, cloaked in luxuriant tropical foliage, framed by a beach of glistening white sand and set in the midst of an indigo sea, it resembles an Emerald mounted upon a slab of lapis lazuli.
Much of the sapphire-bearing ground in Ceylon is planted to rubber trees. The native miners lease sections from the plantation owners and sink shafts between the trees, frequently going down to the depth of seventy feet in order to cut the helam or sapphire bearing stratum. When that has been accomplished they drift along the helam by digging horizontal galleries. The loosened earth is carried to the shaft and raised to the surface by the aid of a windlass. Here it is piled until a sufficient quantity has been accumulated to warrant washing. The washing is performed in baskets and the operation is supervised by the owner who personally collects the gems as they are exposed. The stones are removed to the home of the plantation-owner for safe-keeping and once a month they are sold. The aphorism that self-preservation is the first law of nature was aptly demonstrated at one of these sales. The barefooted Singhalese buyers were grouped in a circle heatedly bidding for the stones. One of their number discovered a scorpion too close to his feet for comfort and, being a public-spirited individual, he informed the community of the peril by shouting: ‘Scorpion!’ at the top of his lungs. A story is told of a fleeing negro who heard the bullet of a pursuer twice—once when it passed him and again when he passed it; well, he was standing still compared to those Singhalese. Scattering gems in all directions they headed for the jungle where the last one arrived just in time to hear the warning word the second time. The intruder was killed and his mangled form exhibited to the natives as, one by one, they gingerly returned. Even that assurance failed to revive the enthusiasm of the assemblage in sapphires and the uneasy manner in which the buyers scrutinized the ground during, the balance of the sale bespoke lack of confidence in the famous words of Ethel Barrymore: ‘That’s all there is is. There is no more!’ Needless to say, that particular sale was not a success financially.
Star sapphires, native to Ceylon and Burma, are found in the same beds as sapphires. They possess a property of which even many jewelers are ignorant, i.e no matter into how many parts of a star sapphire may be cut each fragment will contain a six-pointed star of elusive light. I also acquired some fine specimens of cat’s eyes, which are steadily increasing in popularity.
As previously indicated, success in the gem business is largely dependent upon the buyer’s ability to accurately appraise the merits of concealed in the rough stones and my early training and experience in that particular fitted me admirably for the task which confronted me upon my trip. In the course of my career I have seen unscrupulous dealers take advantage of many men whose business should have rendered them immune to fraud, to mention nothing of the cases of people in whom ignorance in the matter of gems was excusable.
Upon my return from the Orient I went to South America to petition the Colombian government to grant me an option which would enable me to work the Muzo emerald mines, near Bogota, the country’s capital. These mines, which at that time had been inoperative for a number of years owing to litigation, produce emeralds far superior in quality to those found in the Siberian or other fields. I also desired to purchase a magnificent collection of emeralds which the government was holding in its vaults. The emerald is a gem has figured prominently in the annals of romance and tragedy throughout the ages. The ancients ascribed to it the power to sharpen wits, confer riches and enable its owner to foretell future events, but modern society places its stamp of favor upon the emerald for the more practical and self-evident reason of its beauty. Many persons of unquestionable discrimination and refined taste prefer the fires which smolder in the emerald’s depths to the icy austerity of the diamond. My Colombian trip proved interesting and profitable but the incidents which made it so may not be told at this time.
The foregoing are but a few experiences gleaned during my wanderings into distant lands, not only that I might obtain the jewels, but that I might also sense the thrill which comes from searching them out in nature’s hiding places. To me a gem is not merely a cold, inanimate bauble. It symbolizes years of somebody’s life consecrated to obtaining it; it is moist with the sweat of labor amid untold perils and under tropic sun; it is warm with the lifeblood of its discoverer, and as I hold it upon the palm of my hand, I can again feel the pulse of that man leap as it must have done when he first beheld the fruit of his toil. Can you blame me for being fascinated?
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