io The Diamond 



The coincidence of this tale with our Chinese text is striking, the 

 chief points — the deep valley, the flesh thrown down as bait, the 

 birds bringing up the stones with it — being identical. The coincidence 

 is the more remarkable, as the subsequent additional features with 

 which the legend has been embellished in the West are lacking in the 

 Chinese version. For this reason the conclusion is justified that the 

 latter, directly traceable to a version of the type of Epiphanius, was 

 transmitted straightway to China, as revealed by the very words of 

 the Chinese account, from Fu-lin, a part of the Roman Empire. 



In the second oldest Western version we encounter two new ele- 

 ments, — Alexander the Great and snakes guarding the stones. The 

 oldest Arabic work on mineralogy, wrongly connected with the name of 

 Aristotle and composed before the middle of the ninth century, has 

 the following under the "diamond:" 1 "Nobody but my disciple 

 Alexander reached the valley in which diamonds are found. It lies 

 in the east along the extreme frontier of Khorasan, and its bottom 

 cannot be penetrated by human eyes. 2 Alexander, after having 

 advanced thus far, was prevented from proceeding by a host of snakes. 

 In this valley are found snakes which by gazing at a man cause his 

 death. He therefore caused mirrors to be made for them; and when 

 they thus beheld themselves, they perished, while Alexander's men 

 could look at them.* Thereupon Alexander contrived another ruse: 

 he had sheep slaughtered, skinned, and flung on the bottom of the 

 valley. The diamonds adhered to the flesh. The birds of prey seized 

 them and brought part of them up. The soldiers pursued the birds 

 and took whatever of their spoils they dropped." This account might 

 lead us to suspect that the legend may have formed part of the Romance 

 of Alexander, the archetype of which is preserved in the book known as 

 that of Pseudo-Callisthenes, and produced at Alexandria in Egypt in 

 the second century a.d. 4 In fact, however, it does not appear there, 

 nor in any of the other early Western or Oriental cycles of the Alexander 

 legends. The first Alexander legend in which it was incorporated is 



1 J. Ruska, Steinbuch des Aristoteles, p. 150. 



1 Almost identical with the phraseology of Epiphanius: " Ita ut signis desuper, a 

 summitatibus montium tanquam de muris aspiciat solum convallis, pervidere non 

 possit." 



3 A reminiscence of the basilisk, that hideous serpent-like monster described by 

 Pliny (viii, 33). The mediaeval poets have the basilisk die when it beholds itself 

 in a mirror (F. Lauchert, Geschichte des Physiologus, p. 186). 



* According to current opinion. A. Ausfeld (Der griechische Alexanderroman, 

 p. 242, Leipzig, 1907), however, in his fundamental investigation of the Greek 

 work, dates the oldest recension of Pseudo-Callisthenes with great probability in the 

 second century B.C. 



