Acres of Diamonds

¹When going down the Tigris and Euphrates rivers many years ago with a party of English travelers, I found myself under the direction of an old Arab guide whom we hired up at Baghdad.

²He thought that it was not only his duty to guide us down those rivers, but also to entertain us with stories. He told me story after story until I grew weary of his storytelling and ceased to listen.

³I remember that he took off his Turkish cap and swung it in a circle to get my attention. He said he would tell me a story then which he reserved for particular friends.

⁴He told me of a man named Ali Hafed, who owned a very large farm with orchards, grain fields, and gardens, and was a wealthy and contented man. He was contented because he was wealthy, and wealthy because he was contented.

⁵One day there visited this old farmer one of the ancient Buddhist priests, and he sat down by Ali Hafed's fire and told the farmer how this world of ours was made.

⁶The old priest said that if you had a diamond the size of your thumb, you could purchase a whole county, and if you had a mine of diamonds, you could place your children upon thrones through the influence of your great wealth.

⁷Ali Hafed heard all about diamonds, how much they were worth, and went to his bed that night a poor man. He had not lost anything, but he was poor because he was discontented, and discontented because he feared he was poor.

⁸He sold his farm, collected his money, left his family in charge of a neighbor, and away he went in search of diamonds. He traveled through 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 at Barcelona and cast himself into the incoming tide and sank beneath its foaming crest, never to rise in this life again.

⁹The man who purchased Ali Hafed's farm one day led his camel into the garden to drink, and as that camel put its nose into the shallow water of that garden brook, Ali Hafed's successor noticed a curious flash of light from the white sands of the stream.

¹⁰He pulled out a black stone having an eye of light reflecting all the hues of the rainbow. It was a diamond. And thus was discovered the diamond mine of Golconda, the most magnificent diamond mine in all the history of mankind.

¹¹Had Ali Hafed remained at home and dug in his own cellar, or underneath his own wheat-fields, or in his own garden, instead of wretchedness, starvation, and death by suicide in a strange land, he would have had acres of diamonds.