Ball — A Geologists Contribution to the Sistory of India. 103 



an account of whose voyage is given by Baptista Eamusio^ in Ms 

 book of Yoyages and Travels, on the authority of Messer Pogio, 

 Fiorentino. The locality where the diamonds were found was at 

 Abnigaro, fifteen days' journey northwards from Bisnagar." As 

 to its identity I am not yet quite satisfied. We are told that the 

 mountain which produced the diamonds was inaccessible, being- 

 infested with serpents, but was commanded by another mountain 

 •somewhat higher. "Here, at a certain period of the year, men 

 bring oxen, which they drive to the top, and having cut them into 

 pieces, cast the warm and bleeding fragments upon the summit by 

 means of machines which they construct for the purpose. The 

 diamonds stick to these pieces of flesh. Then come vultures and 

 eagles flying to the spot, which seizing the meat for their food, fly 

 away to places where they may be safe from the serpents. To 

 these places the men afterwards come and collect the diamonds 

 which have fallen from the flesh." 



He then describes a different process, which is simply that of 

 washing for diamonds in the beds of rivers. For as far back as 

 we have any certain knowledge of them, the diamond miners have 

 all belonged to one or other of the non- Aryan or aboriginal tribes, 

 who regard the mines as being the special property of the blood- 

 thirsty goddess, Lakshmi, whose cruel nature requires much 

 propitiation. 



To this day sacrificial offerings are made to her on the opening 

 up of mines, of whatever sort, and occasionally the meat is placed 

 on an altar-like scaffold; and in India, as a matter of course, 

 vultures and kites, with other raptorial birds, would carry away 

 and devour whatever portions of meat they could seize upon. 



Out of this custom it seems to me most probable that the 

 tradition grew which has now attained to such a respectable 

 antiquity. Lookers-on, una.cquainted with the semi-savage rites, 

 regard them as essential parts of the search for diamonds. 



Uertomannus. — In the year 1503, Lewes TJertomannus, who is 

 described as a Eoman gentleman, travelled in Western and Southern 

 India. The account of his travels contains some interesting, parti- 



^ Delle Navigationi et Viaggi. Venice: 1613. 



2 These two names are so written in Eamusio's volume, but in a translation of the 

 passage, pnblished by the Hakluyt Society, they are given as Albenigaras ami 

 Bizengulia. 



