Note 168 — Chapter VIII · THE COMBATANTS SALUTE. April-May, 1519.

Carta del Ayunt. de V. Cruz, in Cortés, Cartas, 29. ‘Pessaba la de oro quatro mill y ochoçientos pessos ... tenia nueve palmos y medio de anchura é treynta de çircunferençia,’ says Oviedo, who inspected the presents at Seville, evidently with mathematical precision, iii. 259. ‘Pesaua cien marcos, hecha como Sol, y con muchos follajes, y animales de relieue.’ Gomara, Hist. Mex., 42. Peter Martyr, dec. iv. cap. ix., describes the central figure as a king enthroned, surrounded with foliated ornaments. In the above Carta del Ayunt. a peso de oro and a castellano are shown to be equivalent, and a marco contains fifty castellanos. Writers differ widely in their calculations to reduce these coins to modern values, Prescott estimating the castellanos at $11.67 in United States money, and Ramirez, in a critical note thereupon, at $2.93. Prescott’s Mex., i. 321; also edition Mex. 1845, app. ii. 79-92. See note on coins in Hist. Cent. Am., this series, i. 192-3. Clemencin, in Mem. Real Acad. de Hist., vi. illust. 20, 525-45, enters fully into the subject.