We doubt very much if this historic gem has been known to history for more than five hundred years. If it is, as it has been alleged, a part of the Great Mogul, its appearance among mankind dates from 1550. Had it been known in the times when Timour so mercilessly attacked India, it could hardly have escaped the rapacity of the Tatar. And the history of this conquest, in the latter part of the fourteenth century, leads us to believe that all, or nearly all, of the great diamonds of Bengal have been discovered since that time. Had this gem been added to the Mogul treasury at Delhi in 1304, from the conquest of Malwa by Ala-ud-deen, it probably would have been known to Timour. The last Tatar invasion, in 1736, under Nadir Shah, found the gem set in the turban of the Great Mogul, and it was carried away to Khorasan by the victorious host, together with all the fabulous wealth which had been garnered up during nearly four centuries of prosperity. From Nadir it was wrested by assassination, and passed from ruler to ruler, with strange vicissitudes, until the Sikh power succumbed to the arms of England; when it passed, in 1850, with other treasures, from the stronghold of Lahore to the jewel-chamber of Windsor Castle. Ill fortune has always attended the possession of this gem, it is said; and certainly the reduction of the stone in the blind attempt to improve its brilliancy may be classed in this category. The Hindoos have always maintained that it inevitably brought ruin to its possessor; and surely, the history of the Mogul Empire, the reign of Nadir Shah, its conqueror, the Dooranee dynasty, and the rule of the Sikhs give strength to the plausibility of the tradition. In the chapter on the gems of Asia we shall again refer to this stone. England has had the opportunity, during her Indian conquests, of collecting the most magnificent parure of gems the world has seen. The pride of the French Crown, the matchless Regent, was brought to London by the English Governor, Pitt, and offered to the Royal House; the great Orloff, the boast of the Russian regalia, was brought from India by an Englishman, Earl Effingham; and many other fine diamonds and gems from Hindostan have been brought within the reach of the English Crown before being offered elsewhere for disposition. The neglect to secure these beautiful and matchless treasures is inexcusable even in a commercial view, for a gem paragon is “an empire made portable.” Among the diamonds brought from India by Englishmen, the Pigott and the Nassac deserve some mention.