He said there once
lived not far from the River Indus an ancient Persian by the name
of Al Hafed. He said that Al Hafed owned a very large farm with
orchards, grain fields and gardens. He was a contented and wealthy
man -- contented because he was wealthy, and wealthy because he
was contented.
One day there visited this old farmer one of those
ancient Buddhist priests, and he sat down by Al Hafed's fire and
told that old farmer how this world of ours was made.
He said that
this world was once a mere bank of fog, which is scientifically
true, and he said that the Almighty thrust his finger into the
bank of fog and then began slowly to move his finger around and
gradually to increase the speed of his finger until at last he
whirled that bank of fog into a solid ball of fire, and it went
rolling through the universe, burning its way through other cosmic
banks of fog, until it condensed the moisture without, and fell in
floods of rain upon the heated surface and cooled the outward
crust. Then the internal flames burst through the cooling crust
and threw up the mountains and made the hills and the valleys of
this wonderful world of ours.
If this internal melted mass burst
out and cooled very quickly it became granite; that which cooled
less quickly became silver; and less quickly, gold; and after gold
diamonds were made.
Said the old priest, "A diamond is a
congealed drop of sunlight." This is a scientific truth also.
You all know that a diamond is pure carbon, actually deposited
sunlight -- and he said another thing I would not forget: he
declared that a diamond is the last and highest of God's mineral
creations, as a woman is the last and highest of God's animal
creations.
I suppose that is the reason why the two have such a
liking for each other. And the old priest told Al Hafed that if he
had a handful of diamonds he could purchase a whole country, and
with a mine of diamonds he could place his children upon thrones
through the influence of their great wealth.
Al Hafed heard all
about diamonds and how much they were worth, and went to his bed
that night a poor man -- not that he had lost anything, but poor
because he was discontented and discontented because he thought he
was poor. He said: "I want a mine of diamonds!" So he
lay awake all night, and early in the morning sought out the
priest.
Now I know from experience that a priest when awakened
early in the morning is cross. He awoke that priest out of his
dreams and said to him,
Will you tell me where I can find
diamonds?" The priest said, "Diamonds? What do you want
with diamonds?" "I want to be immensely rich," said
Al Hafed, "but I don't know where to go."
"Well," said the priest, "if you will find a river
that runs over white sand between high mountains, in those sands
you will always see diamonds." "Do you really believe
that there is such a river?" "Plenty of them, plenty of
them; all you have to do is just go and find them, then you have
them."
Al Hafed said, "I will go." So he sold his
farm, collected his money at interest, left his family in charge
of a neighbour, and away he went in search of diamonds.
He began
very properly, to my mind, at the Mountains of the Moon.
Afterwards he went around into Palestine, then wandered on into
Europe, and at last, when his money was all spent, and he was in
rags, wretchedness and poverty, he stood on the shore of that bay
in Barcelona, Spain, when a tidal wave came rolling in through the
Pillars of Hercules and the poor, afflicted, suffering man could
not resist the awful temptation to cast himself into that incoming
tide, and he sank beneath its foaming crest, never to rise in this
life again.
When that old guide had told me that very sad story,
he stopped the camel I was riding and went back to fix the baggage
on one of the other camels, and I remember thinking to myself,
"Why did he reserve that for his particular friends?"
There seemed to be no beginning, middle or end -- nothing to it.
That was the first story I ever heard told or read in which the
hero was killed in the first chapter. I had but one chapter of
that story and the hero was dead.
When the guide came back and took up the halter of my camel again,
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 colours 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 -- 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 such a thing,
like a lawyer, and saying indirectly what he did not dare say
directly, that there was a certain young man that day travelling
down the Tigris River that might better be at home in America. I
didn't tell him I could see it.
I told him his story reminded me
of one, and I told it to him quick. I told him about that man out
in California, who, in 1847, owned a ranch out there. He read that
gold had been discovered in Southern California, and he sold his
ranch to Colonel Sutter and started off to hunt for gold.
Colonel
Sutter put a mill on the little stream in that farm and one day
his little girl brought some wet sand from the raceway of the mill
into the house and placed it before the fire to dry, and as that
sand was falling through the little girl's fingers a visitor saw
the first shining scales of real gold that were ever discovered in
California; and the man who wanted the gold had sold his ranch and
gone away, never to return.
I delivered this lecture two years ago
in California, in the city that stands near that farm, and they
told me that the mine is not exhausted yet, and that a one-third
owner of that farm has been getting during these recent years
twenty dollars of gold every fifteen minutes of his life, sleeping
or waking. Why, you and I would enjoy an income like that!
