AN ACCURSED DIAMOND.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 38, 5 June 1876, Page 2

AN ACCURSED DIAMOND.

Mrs. Burton, the wife of Captain Burton, the African traveller, a lady of great culture and intelligence, writes a book about the curse that clings to the Koh-i----noor. The famous diamond is now the chief jewel of the British Crown, and Queen Victoria sometimes wears it. Mrs. Burton advises her to discard the great diamond of ill-omen, and suggests its utter destruction and obliteration from the face of the earth. The Koh-i-noor has been a raj- of the light of the world for a long time, and to annihilate it would be like blotting out a star. Still, Mrs. Burton thinks it ought to be extinguished for the harm it has caused and entailed on all its possessors. The Koh-i-noor is supposed to have been a product of the rich mines of Galconda. Its history is quite singular, independent of the romance that surrounds it like a halo of misty light. It has been the ambition of kings, and caused the fall and destruction of empires. It is responsible for many assassinations and conspiracies, and has mustered armies and lost battles, and played smash with the Indian monarchies generally. The finder is supposed to have been murdered for it, and- to have cursed his assassin and all future possessors of the "mountain of light" with his last breath. It is his curse that still clings to it, according to Mrs. Burton. It is the purest stone in the world, and though not now the largest, its value is fabulous. Its Indian history terminated with its possession by the family of Runjeet Singh, the Lion of the Punjaub. At the conquest of the Punjaub the Koh-i----noor became a British Crown jewel, and fell into the lap of Queen Victoria. Mrs. Burton tells the Queen that Lord Dalhousie, who sent it to her, died soon afterwards ; that the Duke of Wellington, who gave the first stroke to the new cutting of the diamond, lived but three months, and that Prince Albert, next fell a victim to the ancient curse. She wants the Queen to throw it away, or give it to her " dearest enemy," if she have one, and predicts that its possession bodes disaster to England. Notwithstanding her ciilture and intelligence, Mrs. Burton seems to be painfully superstitious. She seems to have been magnetised by the great white stone. It is hardly likely that she wants to make it a terror so as to get hold of it herself, though such things have been ; the Koh-i----noor, with its good name, is a princely fortune in a very small nutshell. If Queen Victoria is like other women she will hold on to her diamonds.