Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1875 — The Guikwar’s Gems—“ The Star of the South.” [ARTICLE]

The Guikwar’s Gems—“ The Star of the South.”

Leaving the “throne-room through a small door on the right hand side, we find ourselves on an extremely narrow veranda, which encircles a small square well which occupies the center of the palace from top to bottom. Above we see similar verandas, and a number of natives looking overthe railings. Beneath area number of Arabs and other soldiers, Keeping watch over several things, among them a sacred flag which is hung across the well oft occasions of high festival. On the opposite side are a number of closed stanchioned windows, which guard the jewel-room or jemdarkhana. Moving to the right there are rooms which look like» dungeons and are guarded by sentries. At thb end of the veranda we enter a little, close-smelling room, which would bedark were it not for the light of some wicks thrown in a salver of oil—a light which, we are told, is never allowed to be extinguished,... so that it to some extent resembles the holy fire of the Parsees. Here, in a corner on the left, is a door—the outer entrance to the jewel-room. After some delay an elderly Mahratta makes his appearance and opens the lock, and we enter a room which is as black as night and awfully stale smelling. One of the grated windows facing the well is thrown open and by the little light thus obtained we perceive a number of shelves, which are loaded with State archives. Another ponderous black door being unbarred, we enter a dark room—the jewel-room. While a window is being opened we prepare to be surprised with the flash of a thousand jewels, but are rather disappointed to find only a number of iron-clamped chests of drawers ranged round the room. But these drawers'contain the State jewelry, worth £3,000,000 sterling, report, says; and on the custodian pulling out one of the deep drawers in a central chest and producing enormous morocco-covered cases, which are opened tenderly, we have no need to be longer disappointed, for a sight of a novel description meets our eyes. Here in one case lies displayed a breast-piece composed of chains of diamonds, numbering seventy-nine in all. All the diamonds are beautiful, but there are three in the pendant of ten which are conspicuously so, while one at least deserves to be called magnificent. This particular one occupies the center of the pendant, and is, I believe, known as the Star of the South. It is nearly as large as a rupee, and its brilliance would, if you were inclined to be more poetical than covetous, remind you of nothing so much as a mass of Indian sunlight, gathered from the haunts the sun beats upon with greatest intensity, and into, the sparkling block before us. This diamond cost Khunderao £90,000, and, like all great diamonds, has a history, though not such an interesting one, perhaps, as the Sancy diamond, which, you will remember, was found in the bodj' of a servant of Baron de Sancy, who hgd been deputedlo, carry it, as a present, to the King of France, but, being attacked by robbers on the way, swallowed it in order to baffle their attempts to find it. According to Harry Emmanuel, one of our standard authorities on the history of great diamonds, the Star of the South was found in 1853 at Bogagem, in the Province of Minas Geraes, by a negro. When rough it weighed 254)4 carats, but since the cutting it weighs only 125 carats. It is of an oval form, and was cut by—and was, before it found its way to India and tempted the Guikwar, the property of —Mr' Coster, of Amsterdam. It is not perfectly white and pure; but, nevertheless, it is reckoned one of the finest large diamonds in the world. The large oblong diamond fixed above the Star is flat, and possesses nothing like the purity and brilliancy of its great rival. It cost £300,000. The whole breast-piece of diamonds cost over half a million sterling, and is one of the most beautiful necklaces of that description extant. When we have finished admiring the Star of the South and Its seventy-eight multiradiant companions we are shown a necklace composed of a number of chains of pearls, each of remarkable size and purity. This necklace is valued at £50,000. I have been told that pearls do not retain their beauty for more than titty years; and I could not help thinking it a ‘pity that fate would not permit such a thing of beauty as this necklace to remain a joy forever. Drawer alter drawer is opened and case after case of jewels displayed, until the miserable dungeon seems to begin 'to look radiant. Kings, with

stones in them large enough to stretch across three of your fingers; necklaces of diamonds, mostly flat and dull-looking, ’with pearl-shaped emerald drops; noserings of pearls and emeralds; ear-rings of wheels of diamonds and chains of gold; these and similar curiosities aredisplayed in succession before our delighted eyes until we are sated with sights, and leave the old Mahratta, who has watched the goings out and comings in of the jewels for twenty or thirty years, to put the cases back into the drawers, and bar and double bar the doors and windows of the dungeons which compose the Jewelkhana.— Once a Week.