"Sultan Sekandar had made Agra his residence during several years while he was endeavoring to reduce Gwalior. That stronghold was at length gained by capitulation in the reign of Ibrahim: Shemsabad being given in exchange to Bikermajet the Hindoo who was Rajah of Gwalior for more than a hundred years.[D] In the battle of Paniput he was sent to Hell. [Incisive Mohammedan expression which signifies the death of an unbeliever.] When Humayûn arrived (at Agra) Bikermajet's people attempted to escape, but were taken by the parties which Humayûn had placed upon the watch and put in custody. Humayûn did not permit them to be plundered. Of their own free will they presented to Humayûn a _pesh kesh_ (tribute) consisting of a quantity of jewels and precious stones. Among these was _one famous diamond_ which had been acquired by the Sultan Ala-ed-din." [D] Baber's meaning is obscure; probably he should have said "_whose family_ were rajahs, etc." We may reasonably doubt how much of free will there was in the gift from a defeated Hindoo prince to his Afghan conqueror. Let us question this as we may, there is little doubt as to what diamond it was, although Baber gives it no name. The Sultan Ala-ed-din, to whom the imperial memoir-writer here refers, flourished a couple of centuries previously, and it is generally believed that he obtained "the famous diamond" in 1304 when he conquered the Rajah of Malwa in whose family it had been for ages. How it eventually came into the hands of Bikermajet is not explained. But in the wild whirl of revolution and insurrection, which form the main staple of Indian history, many things get hopelessly mixed, and a diamond might easily turn up unexpectedly and be quite unable to account for itself. Baber goes on to relate that the great diamond--we will antedate its name by two centuries and call it henceforward the Koh-i-nûr--was valued by a competent judge of diamonds "at half the daily expenditure of the whole world"--an expression which for grandiloquent vagueness can scarcely be surpassed. Fortunately the same competent judge had not the weighing of the stone, or we should be befogged by some further Oriental hyperbole. [Illustration: UPPER SURFACE. UNDER SURFACE. KOH-I-NUR, AS RE-CUT.]