Louis XIV. was one of his best customers and bought from him jewels and rich stuffs to the enormous amount of three millions of francs; about six hundred thousand dollars. It was on his return from his last voyage, namely in 1668, that Tavernier sold the Blue Diamond to Louis XIV. Unfortunately he does not give any particulars of the purchase of this stone, which is singular as he was a very chatty writer and filled his book with a quantity of delightful little passages beginning "I remember once." He describes at great length the Eastern manner of buying and selling diamonds. Their methods seems greatly to have impressed him, accustomed as he was to the noisy bartering of European markets. He says: "'Tis very pleasant to see the young children of the merchants (at the diamond mines) from the age of ten to sixteen years, who seat themselves upon a tree that lies in an open space of the town (Raolconda, a diamond region near Golconda). Every one of them has his diamond-weight in a little bag hanging on one side and his purse with five or six hundred pagods in it. There they sit waiting for any one to come and sell them some diamonds. If any one brings them a stone they put it into the hand of the eldest boy among them who is, as it were, their chief; who looks upon it and after that gives it to him that is next him, by which means it goes from hand to hand till it returns back to him again, none of the rest speaking a word. After that he demands the price so as to buy it if possible, but if he buy it too dear it is upon his own account. In the evening the children compute what they have laid out; then they look upon the stones and separate them according to their water, their weight and their clearness. Then they bring them to the large merchants who have generally great parcels to match, and the profit is divided among the children equally. Only the chief among them has four per cent. more than the rest." It may have been from some such sedate children that Tavernier bought the Blue Diamond. At the same time he mentions the Coleroon mine as the only one which produces colored diamonds, from which we may infer that "the Blue" hails from that locality. As Tavernier was well-known as a diamond-buyer who gave good prices, it is probable that he would get many proffers of stones from private persons. With regard to another large diamond which he bought in India, he has given a minute account of the transaction which may be taken as a fair sample of Asiatic bartering: