Title - Tags - callumstory
Acres of Diamonds
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Once upon a time, there was an ancient Persian called Ali Hafed who lived near the River Indus
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He was a wealthy and contented man
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Every day, he tended to his very large farm of orchards, grain-fields and gardens
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One day, he was visited by an ancient Buddhist priest
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The priest explained that a diamond is a congealed drop of sunlight (which it is - a deposit of carbon from the sun)
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The priest told Hafed that if he had a mine of diamonds he would be as wealthy and influential as a king
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Because of that, the man went to bed that night thinking about diamonds and feeling poor because he didn’t have any
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He lay awake all night and said to himself, “I want a mine of diamonds”
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Because of that, the next morning, he sought out the priest and asked where he could find a mine of diamonds
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The priest explained to the man that, if he wanted to find diamonds, all he had to do was find a river that runs through white sands, between high mountains, and he will find them in those sands
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Because of that, the man sold his farm, collected his money, left his family in the care of a neighbour, and went in search of diamonds
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His search took him far and wide through Palestine and Europe
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Until finally, when all his money was spent and he was in rags, poverty and turmoil, he stood on the shore of a bay in Barcelona, Spain, when a great tidal wave came rolling in
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The poor, suffering, dying man couldn’t resist the awful temptation to cast himself into that incoming tide, sank beneath the foaming crest of the wave and died.
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The man who purchased Ali Hafed’s farm was walking his camel into the garden to drink and notice a flash of light from the white sands of the stream
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He took the pebble into the house, put it on the mantel, and forgot all about it
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A few days later, the same old priest came to visit Ali Hafed’s successor, saw the diamond on the mantel, and asked if Ali had returned
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The man replied that he had not, and insisted that it wasn’t a diamond,
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To prove that it was indeed a diamond, the priest took Ali’s successor back to the white sands of the stream and together they unearthed diamond after diamond after diamond
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Ever since then, the stream of Ali Hafed’s old farm has been known as the famous diamond-mine of Golconda - the most magnificent diamond mine of all time
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The mine produced diamonds for the crown jewels of England and Russia