The Mysterious Mr Jacob: Diamond Merchant, Magician and Spy

by John Zubrzycki

  The story of how he sold his first diamond was one of the many myths that outlived Jacob. Using the money he had saved in Hyderabad and his keen eye for a bargain, he bought his first diamond for a pittance. He then sold it for more than a 100 per cent profit to an English collector. ‘From that moment on his ambition was fixed,’ wrote Frederick Heath, recounting what Jacob had told him. He left Hyderabad and went to Delhi where ‘he boldly entered into competition with the finest jewellers of the East but, fearing nothing and with sublime faith in himself, he soon acquired a position of influence, and rapidly made money’.5

  It is doubtful whether Jacob had such a smooth ride. Much of the domestic market was firmly in the hands of banias, a caste of Gujarati traders who still dominate the diamond trade today. European jewellers had a long-established foothold as well. Ralph Fitch, one of the earliest British travellers to reach India in 1583, wrote that one member of his party, a man by the name of William Leader, remained behind to serve as a jeweller for the King of Cambay. Thomas Pitt, Governor of Madras in the early eighteenth century, sent vast quantities of rough diamonds to Europe where they were sold at a huge profit. Europe’s largest jewellery firms sent their agents to India to procure precious stones which were cut and set in contemporary settings.

  Jacob had certain advantages. His apprenticeships at the court of the Nizam and in Calcutta at Charles, Nephew & Co. had taught him the basics of the trade. Years of travel in the Princely states had taught Jacob the special place gems and jewellery occupied in the minds and lives of Indians. Precious stones were never seen as being purely decorative. Every ornament—from a crude nose-ring made of gold worn by a poor peasant woman to the largest diamond—had an element of magic and mythology, an underlying esotericism. Among Muslims, necklaces, girdles, armlets or buttons often had a case to hold a talisman. For Hindus, jewellery was highly auspicious, with different stones having the power to bring health, wealth and happiness, but also grave danger if worn incorrectly.

  ‘In the East, precious stones are looked upon as actual personalities—direct emanations from God, almost—nay, quite—alive,’ wrote Edmund Russell, when explaining how Jacob’s understanding of the lore of gems was crucial to his success. ‘Each form, bead, pattern, colour, string—even twist and material of string—has its mystic meaning.’6

  Russell was a self-styled artist, actor and poet who threw parties in his Manhattan studio, dressed in bejewelled gold-laced kimonos, and greeted his guests by shining an Aladdin’s lamp over their heads. He wrote two long articles on Jacob in the Occult Review—one on his seances and the other on his knowledge of precious stones after meeting him in Bombay in the early 1900s.

  ‘Each gem according to colour, form, composition, had, for him, special astrological meaning, as for the magi of ancient times when the world was ruled by stars,’ Russell wrote. ‘It is no exaggeration to assert that (Jacob) knew, and possibly still knows, almost every precious stone of any importance in India, being blindly trusted by the majority of his customers.’7

  Russell recalled Jacob pointing out the significance of the different stones in a statue of Yama, the four-armed Hindu God of death—green chalcedony for his trident, yellow sard for his strangling chord, red agate for his club and almandine ruby for his sword. Drawing on his knowledge of Hindu lore, Jacob explained that Vishnu, in one of his nine incarnations as saviour of the world, committed a single sin so that he might understand the remorse that ordinary mortals feel. On his return to the abode of the Gods, as he began repeating his mantras, a single teardrop fell to earth. ‘From this, the anguish of a God, crystallized the first sapphire’, the jewel of repentance. Vishnu’s consort, Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth, was said to preside over ‘all the jewels and precious metals in the womb of the earth’. Parvati, the Goddess of love preferred pearls, whereas emeralds were sacred to Sarasvati, the patroness of learning and music.

  For Jacob, each day of the week had its particular stone: Sunday (ruby), Monday (pearl), Tuesday (coral), Wednesday (emerald), Thursday (topaz), Friday (diamond) and Saturday (sapphire). ‘If I met (Jacob) on Monday he was always wearing a pearl scarf pin,’ Russell recalled. ‘Nothing but silver filled his pockets—lined with gold on the day one admired his ruby cuff links. On Wednesday, of course, it was emeralds. Thursday, if the Oriental topaz seemed too common, he showed the rarer yellow ruby.’ When choosing gems, Jacob attached great ‘significance to the chord of their vibrations with those of the planets and our own’. He was also intensely superstitious. Meeting a one-eyed beggar on his way to work would mean shutting his shop for the day.8

  A successful gem merchant had to understand the intrinsic powers of precious stones, alone and in combination with other stones or precious metals. According to Hindu mythology, the sapphire was the most powerful stone because of its association with Saturn the planet of darkness and turbulence. It was to be worn only after consultation with an astrologer. Coral was beneficial to people affected by the planet Mars in their horoscopes. Certain stones were said to change colour according to a person’s health or their luck. In Ayurvedic medicine, traditional practitioners believe that the first defence against disease is precious stones, followed by prayer and, finally, medicine.

  For an aspiring jeweller, Simla, the summer capital of the Raj, was the destination of choice. Where the government went, merchants, shopkeepers and traders followed. W. Martin Towlle’s Hand Book and Guide to Simla, published in 1877, a year after Jacob’s arrival, listed two banks, a club and a library, two jewellers, ten businesses grouped under the title of drapers-milliners, haberdashers and tailors, eight hotels and boarding houses, three wine and general merchants and two druggists and chemists. Also listed was the office of the Civil and Military Gazette from where the young Kipling would send his dispatches to readers around India. The Viceregal residence was at Peterhof, which Lord Lytton likened to a ‘cow stable’.

  Jacob’s accommodation of choice in his first few years was Lawries. Built in the 1830s, it was the oldest and largest hotel in Simla. It was also a favourite with long-term visitors. The three-storey building was situated just below the Ridge and fronted the Mall, where most of the shops were located. It prided itself on its central location and excellent view. Breakfast was served at 9 a.m., tiffin at 2 p.m. and dinner at 7 p.m.9 Extra charges were levied for kerosene lamps, wax candles, kettles of hot water and quarts of English porter. It had a comfortable and well-stocked lounge where copies of the Himalayan Advertiser and the Simla Advertiser, could always be found.

  Jacob booked one room for sleeping and one for his business. The latter, he quickly filled with antiques and bric-à-brac, old carpets, Tibetan masks, brass statues, Mughal miniatures and a steel almirah where he kept his collection of precious stones and jewellery.

  On a table next to ancient tomes on Eastern philosophies, Semitic magic, Arab folktales and the secrets of alchemy were well-thumbed leather-bound copies of Harry Emanuel’s Diamonds and Precious Stones and Edwin William Streeter’s Precious Stones and Gems.

  Emanuel, one of London’s most famous Bond Street jewellers, peppered his book with explanations of how to ascertain the gravity of gemstones, their optical qualities, transparency and fusibility. The famous Mayfair jeweller traced their history to ancient Greece and beyond. He wrote extensively on diamonds, how they were mined, cut and valued, and described in detail the provenance of the largest brilliants in the world.

  Streeter, whose fame as a jeweller had earned him a mention in H. Rider Haggard’s 1885 novel King Solomon’s Mines, took a similarly didactic approach, explaining how to distinguish Siberian tourmaline from its Burmese counterpart, and why Arab onyx was superior to the varieties found in Bavaria and Bohemia. His chapters contained descriptions of how spheres of rock crystal were carried in the hand by the women of ancient Rome to keep cool, how Arabs endowed moonstones with the power of curing epilepsy and making trees fruitful, how jasper was used in the Holy Scriptures to represent the New Jerusalem.

  A
s was the custom at the time, Jacob visited homes, shops, clubs, government offices and army camps, leaving his calling card in the little tin receptacle by the front door to notify people that he was open for business. He didn’t have to wait long.

  Lawrence’s decision to make Simla the summer capital meant that, for six months of the year, there was a captive market of wealthy Europeans and Indians ready to spend their savings on Jacob’s ‘curios and bijouterie’. Viceroys and commanders-in-chief, civil servants and clerks, Bengalee babus and rich Marwari merchants became, first, his customers and then, his confidants.

  Simla society formed its own caste hierarchy that congregated every evening around the aptly named Scandal Point and promenaded up and down the Mall. It was a place of incessant gossip, petty intrigue, endless entertainment and social climbing. ‘Here is the Olympus where the gods, when they did not descend to Calcutta or Delhi, sat … not careless of mankind but worrying a good deal about the welfare of one-fifth of the human race, declared or composed war, issued fiats for enthronements and discrownments,’ Sir Henry Sharp wrote in Goodbye India. ‘And amid this hum of public affairs, some folk have been unkind enough to say they could not sleep (all) nights by reasons of the sound of the grindings of private axes.’10

  Simla in Ragtime, published in 1913 by a writer using the pen name ‘Doz’, encapsulated the social milieu. ‘Generals and major generals, and minor generals; members of councils, secretaries, undersecretaries, and a miscellaneous crowd of civil and military ratings. Indian, European, Indo-Europeans, and Anglo-Indians; all with the cares of the State stamped on their wrinkled brows. Yes, every one of them is a plenipotentiary of some sort or another; if not in reality then in his own estimation. Even the eighty-rupee clerk lords it over the forty-rupee Punjabi typist, and exercises his statutory powers in true oriental manner. The somberness of the throng is happily relieved by numerous, meandering, red-coated and gold-braided chaprasees with bundles or banded boxes, containing state mysteries slung over their shoulders.’11

  Jacob’s arrival in Simla coincided with crucial developments on the Afghan frontier. For much of the past four decades, Afghanistan had been the focus of intense rivalry between the two great Imperialist powers, Czarist Russia and Victorian Britain. Russia’s prize was control of Central Asia and the legendary cities of the Silk Route. Britain wanted to use Afghanistan as a buffer zone and to control its foreign relations to check Russia’s advances. The contest—which was largely played out using spies and secret intelligence—became known as the ‘Great Game’. As Lord Curzon, Britain’s Viceroy at the end of the nineteenth century, declared: ‘Turkestan, Afghanistan, Transcaucasia and Persia—to many, these words breathe only a sense of utter remoteness … but to me, they are pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a game for the domination of the world.’12

  After being rebuffed by Britain, Afghanistan’s Amir Sher Ali was shifting his allegiance to Russia. In 1869, he had tried unsuccessfully to get a formal agreement from the then-Viceroy Lord Mayo and a formal treaty pledging British aid in case of a Russian attack. As Moscow continued its eastward advance, he sent another envoy, this time to Lord Northbrook, promising his allegiance in return for an annual subsidy, recognizing his son Abdullah Jan as his heir, and providing for his country’s defence. Northbrook was instructed by Prime Minister William Gladstone to turn the offer down.

  How much Jacob found out from his spies in Simla about the course of the Great Game and how much he passed on to the British will probably never be known. What is certain is that he could not afford to lower his guard. Tension on the frontier could disrupt the flow of gems, antiques and carpets from Central Asia. A sudden deployment of troops westwards would deplete his customer base in Simla. He was also a conduit for British army officers who dabbled in trading gems they picked up cheaply in the bazaars of Peshawar, Kohat and Quetta, and who relied on Jacob to dispose of them. These soldiers were often a valuable source of information. His intelligence on the frontier was therefore equal to if not better than what the British had.

  The Indian Government’s record for intelligence-gathering in Afghanistan had never been one of its strong points. In 1873, Britain and Russia signed an agreement making Afghanistan a buffer state with the Oxus River as the northern border. Since then, Britain had maintained a state of ‘masterly inactivity’.13

  Jacob’s unique talents did not go unnoticed. Sometime in the second half of 1876, he received one of the most audacious offers ever made to a foreigner during the course of the Great Game. Three-and-a-half years after Britain had been unceremoniously booted out of the country at the end of the First Afghan War, Jacob was asked to go to Kabul as a special attaché. The British wanted him to become their de facto agent in Afghanistan.

  The offer came from Lord Lytton. Jacob would have made sure to leave his calling card at Peterhof, the Viceregal Lodge. Winning the confidence of the highest in the land was critical to his success in business and society. It was said of Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, born in 1831, that he had inherited ‘insanity from one parent and limitless conceit from the other’.14 The insanity presumably came from his mother, Rosina Wheeler, who was briefly committed to a mental asylum by his father Edward Bulwer-Lytton after the couple’s acrimonious divorce. The limitless conceit fitted his father’s character. Edward Bulwer-Lytton was a successful politician who rose to the rank of Colonial Secretary in 1858. He was also a prolific novelist, poet and playwright, and is best remembered for giving the literary world the immortal opening line: ‘It was a dark and stormy night.’ He was also a master of the occult.

  Photographs of Lytton from his time in India show him sitting uncomfortably on the Viceregal throne, as much the result of a recent operation for piles as of his unease at holding such a high office. When not wearing his official regalia, Lytton liked to pose as a bearded bohemian, dressed in bell-bottomed trousers, square-toed shoes and ostentatious jewellery. He would spend whole evenings flirting with pretty women, while neglecting his more important guests. He wrote erotic poetry and shocked local sensibilities by stripping the Japanese wallpaper from the walls of Peterhof’s ballroom and painting them bright red.

  In Lytton, Jacob had an unconventional ally who, like his father, was fascinated with the supernatural, frequently holding seances at Peterhof. Jacob’s skills at communicating with the departed brought him into the Viceroy’s exclusive circle. Lytton frequented his shop on the Mall, once buying a diamond bracelet for his wife. He also spent many days at Belvedere, the house Jacob moved into after his stay at Lawries. The Viceroy was said to have had a keen appreciation not only of the jeweller’s knowledge of India and its people ‘but also of his incomparable wines’.15

  The reasoning behind Lytton’s decision to offer Jacob a posting in Kabul was simple. The hawkish Forward School which argued for an assertive foreign policy that would keep Afghanistan under the dominance of Britain, not Russia, was gaining the upper hand. The newly elected Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli was fed up with the defensive posture which had been articulated by Gladstone. Control of the passes through the Hindu Kush was seen as critical to deterring Czarist spies, as was the stationing of an army in Quetta to control access to southern Afghanistan and of a British mission in Kabul. Sending someone like Jacob, who was not a British citizen but had valuable contacts in Kabul and strong ties to the Raj through his services to the Crown, was an attractive compromise. As someone born in Turkey, he was considered a neutral player in the delicate geo-political moves taking place on the Afghan frontier.

  Jacob never made it to Kabul. He later explained that his reason for turning the offer down was his preference for a posting to Constantinople. That never eventuated, either. It was a prescient decision. In a couple of months, Britain would plunge headlong into the disastrous Second Afghan War. But Jacob’s usefulness to the British was not over yet.

  A couple of days before his arrival in Simla in April 1876, Lytton had sent a letter to Sher Ali demandi
ng that he receive Sir Lewis Pelly as the head of a mission to Kabul. Sher Ali refused, saying he could not receive a British mission without accepting a Russian one, nor could he guarantee the safety of any British officer entering Afghanistan. He also snubbed Lytton’s invitation to attend the Imperial Assemblage to proclaim Queen Victoria’s new title as Empress of India.

  In July 1878, another letter was sent to Kabul repeating the same demands. Stalling for time, Sher Ali suggested sending the native British agent at Kabul, Atta Mohammed Khan, to Simla to explain the Amir’s views. When Khan finally arrived in Simla in October, he had nothing new to offer from the Afghan ruler. By now, Lytton’s patience was almost at an end. While Sher Ali was refusing to receive a British mission, spies in Kabul had confirmed he had warmly welcomed a Russian one led by General Stoletov. Lytton became almost apoplectic at the news. He described Sher Ali ‘not only as a savage, but a savage with a touch of insanity’. Britain’s nightmare had come true, he pointed out to London. Russian officers and troops had been received with honour in Kabul ‘within 150 miles of our frontier’.16

  In a telegram to his superiors in London on August 2, Lytton warned that ‘to remain inactive now’ would be ‘to allow Afghanistan to fall certainly and completely under Russian power and influence’. The only way forward, he insisted, was to dispatch a mission to Afghanistan, using force if necessary.17

  On August 14, the Viceroy wrote to the Amir announcing his intention of sending a mission to Kabul and requesting a safe conduct for its members. The mission was led by General Sir Neville Chamberlain, whom Lytton described as ‘an able resolute man of exceptional experience of all frontier matters’.18 He was on friendly terms with the Amir. His second in command was Major Louis Cavagnari. The mission included an escort of 250 guides and carried expensive presents to appease the Amir.

  London saw things differently. Disraeli had received what he considered to be a satisfactory explanation from the Russian government for Stoletov’s delegation to Kabul and urged Lytton to wait. Somehow, the telegrams got crossed or were simply ignored, prompting an angry response from Disraeli when he heard that Chamberlain’s delegation was ready to force its way up the Khyber Pass. When the mission was cordially but firmly turned back at the first Afghan outpost, Lytton wanted to declare war. This time, Disraeli’s caution held and it was decided to give Sher Ali until sundown on November 20 to apologize for turning away the British mission.