Chalchihuitls from Central America. 251 



they mistook some of these cJialchihuitles for true emeralds ; at 

 any rate the Indians were eager to obtain the glass beads of the 

 Spaniards, not knowing them to be artificial. If, however, the 

 Spaniards really fell into any mistake as to these stones, they 

 were not long in finding it out, as appears from an anecdote re- 

 lated by Torquemada, describing how Don Pedro Alvarado 

 often played with Montezuma at a game called bodoque, in 

 which, while the latter paid his losses in gold, the former paid 

 his in chalchiuites, "que son piedras entre los Indios estimada, 

 y entre los Castellanos, no." {Mon. Inch, vol. i. p. 462.) 



The Mexicans nevertheless had true emeralds, of which we 

 have left to us the most glowing descriptions. Gomara de- 

 scribes particularly five large ones which Cortez took with him 

 from Mexico to Spain at the time of his first visit, and which 

 were regarded as among the finest in the world. They were 

 valued at 100,000 ducats, and for one of them the Genoese 

 merchants offered 40,000 ducats, with the view of selling it to 

 the Grand Turk. Cortez had also the emerald vases, which 

 the padre Mariana assures us, in the supplement of his History 

 of Spain, were worth 300,000 ducats. They are reported to 

 have been lost at sea. All these emeralds were cut in Mexico 

 by Indian lapidaries under the orders of Cortez, and were most 

 elaborately worked. One was wrought in the form of a little 

 bell, with a fine pearl for a clapper, and had on its lip this 

 inscription in Spanish, Bendito quien te crio ! Blessed he who 

 made thee ! The one valued most highly was in the shape of 

 a cup, with a foot of gold. All of them were presented by 

 Cortez to his second wife, who thus, says Gomara, became 

 possessed of finer jewels than any other woman in Spain. 

 Remarkable as were these emeralds, Peter Martyr mentions 

 one, of which Cortez was robbed by the French pirates, that 

 must have surpassed any of them in size and value. "But 

 what shall wee speake of Iewelles and precious stones? Omit- 

 ting the rest, there was an Emerode like a Pyramis, the lowest 

 part or bottome whereof was almost as broad as the palme of 



