ain, he went right on with the same story.
He said that Al Hafed's successor led his camel out into the garden to
drink, and as that camel put its nose down into the clear water of the
garden brook Al Hafed's successor noticed a curious flash of light from
the sands of the shallow stream, and reaching in he pulled out a black
stone having an eye of light that reflected all the colors of the
rainbow, and he took that curious pebble into the house and left it on
the mantel, then went on his way and forgot all about it. A few days
after that, this same old priest who told Al Hafed how diamonds were
made, came in to visit his successor, when he saw that flash of light
from the mantel. He rushed up and said, "Here is a diamond--here is a
diamond! Has Al Hafed returned?" "No, no; Al Hafed has not returned and
that is not a diamond; that is nothing but a stone; we found it right
out here in our garden." "But I know a diamond when I see it," said he;
"that is a diamond!"

Then together they rushed to the garden and stirred up the white sands
with their fingers and found others more beautiful, more valuable
diamonds than the first, and thus, said the guide to me, were discovered
the diamond mines of Golconda, the most magnificent diamond mines in all
the history of mankind, exceeding the Kimberley in its value. The great
Kohinoor diamond in England's crown jewels and the largest crown diamond
on earth in Russia's crown jewels, which I had often hoped she would
have to sell before they had peace with Japan, came from that mine, and
when the old guide had called my attention to that wonderful discovery
he took his Turkish cap off his head again and swung it around in the
air to call my attention to the moral. Those Arab guides have a moral to
each story, though the stories are not always moral. He said, had Al
Hafed remained at home and dug in his own cellar or in his own garden,
instead of wretchedness, starvation, poverty and death in a strange
land, he would have had "acres of diamonds"--for every acre, yes, every
shovelful of that old farm afterwards revealed the gems which since have
decorated the crowns of monarchs. When he had given the moral to his
story, I saw why he had reserved this story for his "particular
friends." I didn't tell him I could see it; I was not going to tell that
old Arab that I could see it. For it was that mean old Arab's way of
going around a thing, like a lawyer, and saying indirectly what he did
no