136 Mr Breton on the Diamond Workings 



they pick up. Their habits are extremely dissipated ; and when 

 they find a diamond they spend the money it procures for 

 them in a continued scene of debauchery. In the Pergun- 

 nahs of Raegurh, Sonepoor, Jushpoor, and Gongpoor, are 

 also to be found persons of this kind. In the two last men- 

 tioned a species of gold mine is to be found, the aperture 

 only just large enough for a man to descend, but of consider- 

 able extent below. An account of the mine in Gongpoor, 

 from which it is stated to me that a species of pure gold of 

 considerable size have been obtained, remains to be submitted." 

 The diamond searchers, with their women and children, 

 amounting to between four and five hundred persons, are 

 annually employed from the month of November till the 

 commencement of the rainy season in searching the bed of 

 the Mahanuddee for diamonds. They examine such parts of 

 the river as are obstructed by rocks from Chunderpoor to 

 Sonepoor, a distance of about 120 miles, and all the hollows 

 in the bed of the Mahanuddee in which alluvial matter is de- 

 posited. Tlie process pursued by the searchers is extremely 

 simple, and three implements only are used by them. The 

 first is a kind of pick-axe, with one pick called ankooa ; the 

 second a plank of about five feet in length, and two feet in 

 width, made a little concave towards the centre, and a rim of 

 three inches in height on each side, called Doer ; and third, a 

 board of similar form, but only half the size of the former, 

 called Kootla. With the pick-axe the earth is dug out of 

 the hollows, and collected in heaps near the stream ; pieces of 

 this earth are then placed by the women on the large board, 

 which is so inclined as to allow the earth, when mixed with 

 water, gradually to run off; the pebbles and coarse gravel are 

 then picked and thrown away, and the remaining mass is af- 

 terwards removed from the large to the small board, and 

 spread over the latter, to admit of every particle being mi- 

 nutely examined, and gems and grains of gold, if any be pre- 

 sent, being collected. The earth in which the diamond is 

 usually found consists of a mixture of stiff reddish clay, peb- 

 bles, and a small proportion of sand, and a little oxide of iron. 

 This earth the searchers take particular pains to find, and 

 they examine every particle of it with the greatest attention. 



