"The Koh-i-noor was first discovered in the mines of Golconda about A.D. 1650, and has cursed the world for two hundred and forty-three years. The famous Mir Jumla was then farmer of the diamond mines, and the King's chief minister, a Persian who had been brought young to India, and who rose by rapid gradations to power, was famous for the sagacity of his plans and the ruthless cruelty with which he carried them out. The poor people, under compulsory labour, had to give their services for a bare subsistence to all the farmers of the mines, and under Mir Jumla their condition was desperate; this tempted them occasionally to elude the vigilance of their taskmasters, and secrete a stone if they could. The cruelties that followed the smallest suspicion of such a fault rendered the mines a perpetual scene of horror, especially under Mir Jumla, and it is supposed that some frightful act of fiendish brutality occurred at the finding of the Koh-i-noor, which was cursed by the innocent victim--a curse which ever since, according to the natives of India, has remained attached to it and its possessors. "Certain it is that before the King of Golconda had long been in possession of it he quarrelled with Mir Jumla, who in return treacherously invited the Mogul Emperor of Delhi, Aurungzeb, to invade his master's territory, promising to join him with the whole of the forces under his command. This he did, and the King of Golconda had to sue for peace, which was granted by Aurungzeb only on his giving him one of his daughters in marriage; making over to him a large portion of his treasures, including the Koh-i-noor, as well as a considerable slice of his territories; and consenting to hold the rest as a fief of the Great Mogul Empire. Some time after, the King of Golconda thought he saw a favourable opportunity to recover his territories, rose against his oppressor, and lost all the rest of his kingdom--nay, all that he possessed. Mir Jumla died a miserable death of disease in exile. "Aurungzeb, the second royal possessor of the Koh-i-noor, was at the time of getting it in the zenith of his power; but immediately trouble after trouble rained upon him, and accumulated till he died in 1707. After his death a war began amongst his progeny. The first who succeeded him, the third royal possessor of the Koh-i-noor, was Shah Alum, who died in 1712, five years after his succession. The next King of Delhi, the fourth possessor of the Koh-i-noor, was Jehander Shah, who was deposed and strangled at the end of one year (1713). Ferok Shah, the next in succession and fifth possessor of the Koh-i-noor, met the same fate in 1719, in the course of which year two other occupants of the throne (sixth and seventh possessors of the Koh-i-noor) passed in the same way thence to the grave.