A typewritten memoir, The Koh-i-Noor in the Toshkhana of the 'Great Maharajah', by E. Dalhousie Login, daughter of Dr John Login, guardian of Maharajah Duleep Singh, and derived from his own account England, circa 1914-18 14 typewritten pages, double-spaced, together with four pages from the Morning Chronicle, 19th July 1852, containing a short notice on the cutting of the Koh-i-Noor; bound in a folder with four short stories by the same author of varying length, 'A Victim of the Entente Cordiale', 'Moonlight Memories: an episode in a busy life', 'A Lady of Spain', 'A Check at the Start', typewritten, in later cloth-covered folder sheets 265 x 180 mm.; folder 305 x 240 mm. Footnotes: All famous jewels prove the nucleus of myths. None, I imagine, have evolved such a galaxy of legends as the great diamond credited with the magic power of conveying to its possessor the suzerainty of India. This propensity on its part had survived even its transmission from East to West. Sir John Login's daughter uses her father's letters and papers to knit together a first-hand account of this famous jewel's already existing reputation, its transfer to British possession, and the apocryphal and often humorous stories told of its handling. She begins with the tale of how the jewel passed from ruler to ruler, before passing from the Afghan Shah Shuja into the hands of Maharajah Ranjit Singh. How this happened is related in direct speech in the voice of Misr Makraj, the Treasurer of the Toshkhana, as told to Sir John Login in 1849. '...he sent for jewellers to test it and, on their verdict, 'kept the topaz, but sent immediate orders to place the Shah under restraint (tungai) and to prevent him from eating or drinking until the Koh-i-Noor demanded was given up!'' She goes on to relate how the Maharajah moved the jewel to Amritsar, and how it travelled with him wherever he went, hidden in a trunk carried by one camel (which one was kept secret) out of a heavily-guarded column of a hundred. 'In camp, this box was placed between two others alike, close to the pole of the tent'. After the death of Ranjit Singh, and the internecine faction fighting which succeeded it, some of the staff of the Toshkhana were murdered, others relieved of their positions, then reinstated. 'At length they were released 'and the charge of the Toshkhana and Koh-i-Noor again came into the hands of Misr Makraj, with whom it has continued without intermission', so runs the document from which I am quoting, 'until made over to me, the undersigned J. S. Login, on April 3rd 1849, when taken possession of by the British Government''. However, the British were still concerned for the safety of the treasury, showing where their priorities lay. Lord Dalhousie wrote: ''As guardians seem so little to be trusted,' this refers to the escape of the Maharanee Jinda from custody, 'I hope you have taken proper precautions in providing full security for the jewels and Crown property at Lahore, whose removal would be a more serious affair than that of the Maharanee''. Login was therefore appointed custodian. '...'I cannot yet arrive at a valuation of the jewels', Login wrote to his wife on 10th April, '(exclusive of the Koh-i-Noor) but I don't think it will be far short of a million''. He notes too: ''You would laugh to see how they were kept (and yet quite safely) by the native treasurers, all rolled up separately in little bits of rag, and stowed away in such odd places!''. As well as the gold and silver there was 'the immense collection of magnificent Cashmere shawls, rooms full of them, laid out on shelves, and heaped up in bales - it is not to be described! And all this made over without any list or public document of any sort, to set in order, value, sell'. However, the treasurer did give him some advice: ' From my father's private letters it is evident that the old treasurer, Misr Makraj, gave him every help [...] his expressions of relief at being free of the sole responsibility, for, as he said, the Koh-i-Noor had been fatal to so many of his family that he had hardly hoped ever to survive the charge of it!' He advised Login to 'retain it in his own hand, with the ribbon cords that secured it as an armlet twisted firmly round his fingers'. When it was time for the jewel to be handed over to higher British authority, the story is told of how Lord Dalhousie came to see Login in Lahore 'bringing with him a small bag, made by Lady Dalhousie, to hold it; and after I had formally made it over to him, he went into my room and fastened it round his waist, under his clothes, in my presence. Lord Dalhousie himself wrote out the formal receipt for the jewel, and there my responsibility ended, and I felt it as a great load taken off me!' The wording of the receipt, made out on 7th December 1849, is given. She then quotes from a letter of the equally nervous Dalhousie: 'I brought it from Lahore myself! I undertook the charge of it in a funk, and never was so happy in all my life as when I got it into the Treasury at Bombay. It was sewn and double-sewn into a belt secured round my waist'. At one point he left it with a Captain Ramsay, 'locked in a treasure chest, and with strict orders that he was to sit upon the chest till I came back! My stars! What a relief it was to get rid of it!' She puts paid to the legend that Dalhousie (or Sir John Lawrence) carried it his his waistcoat pocket, or the story that it was nearly thrown out along with Lawrence's laundry, as being totally impracticable - 'Of such amazing flights of fancy has this jewel been the origin!' 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