Note 144 — Chapter I

“Sirviéron al Emperador con muchas piedras, i entre ellas con una esmeralda fina, como la palma, pero quadrada, i que se remataba en punta como pirámide.” (Gomara, Crónica, cap. 146.) Martyr confirms the account of this wonderful emerald, which, he says, “was reported to the king and council to be nearly as broad as the palm of the hand, and which those who had seen it thought could not be procured for any sum.” De Orbe Novo, dec. 8, cap. 4.{*}

{*} [Alaman, however, denies that this stone was an emerald, or that any true emeralds were found by the Conquerors in Mexico, notwithstanding the frequent mention of them in contemporary relations. “There are no emeralds,” he says, “in our republic; and the stones mistaken for them at the time of the Conquest were jade or serpentine.” As an evidence of the ignorance on this subject common in Europe at a former period, he cites the famous instance of the Sacro Catino at Genoa, regarded for ages as an emerald of priceless value, but now proved to be an imitation. (Disertaciones históricas, tom. i. p. 161.) It is certain that no emeralds are now found in any part of North America. Yet the Conquerors would seem to have been more discriminating than Señor Alaman represents them. They distinguished the chalchivitl, supposed to have been jade, from the emerald, and rejected as valueless other green stones prized by the natives. The case of the Sacro Catino does not apply, since it is not pretended that the Mexicans possessed the art of imitating precious stones by means of paste. The fact, therefore, that the emeralds sent and taken to Europe by Cortés were there recognized as genuine affords a presumptive proof in their favor, which has been generally accepted as sufficient by modern writers on the subject.—K.]