us stones, yet hardly possessed
a single sou. So impoverished was the land, and so slender were the
purses of all, that the duke of Albuquerque dined on an egg and a
pigeon, yet it required six weeks to make an inventory of his plate.
At this period, when the nobles gave fetes the lamps were often
decorated with emeralds and the ceilings garlanded with precious
stones. The women fairly blazed with sparkling gems of fabulous value,
while the country was starving. Most, if not all, of this missing
treasure was transferred to Asia, and with the silver current which
flowed steadily from the Spanish coffers into India went many of the
emeralds also; for in those regions this gem is regarded as foreign
stone, and the natives, investing it with the possession of certain
talismanic properties, prize it above all earthly treasures.

When the Spaniards commenced their march toward the capital of Mexico,
they were astonished at the magnificence of the costumes of the chiefs
who came to meet them as envoys or join them as allies, and among the
splendid gems which adorned their persons they recognized emeralds and
turquoises of such rare perfection and beauty that their cupidity was
excited to the highest degree. During the after years of conquest and
occupation the avaricious spoilers sought in vain for the parent ledge
where these precious stones were found. Recent times have, however,
revealed the home of the Mexican turquoise, which has proved to be in
the northern part of Mexico, as the Totonacs informed the inquiring
Spaniards. The first of these mines, which is of great antiquity, is
situated in the Cerrillos Mountains, eighteen miles from Santa Fe.
The deposit occurs in soft trachyte, and an immense cavity of several
hundred feet in extent has been excavated by the Indians while
searching for this gem in past times. Probably some of the fine
turquoises worn by the Aztec nobles at the time of the Spanish
Conquest came from this mine. Another mine is located in the Sierra
Blanca Mountains in New Mexico, but the Navajos will not allow
strangers to visit it. Stones of transcendent beauty have been taken
from it, and handed down in the tribe from generation to generation
as heirlooms. Nothing tempts the cupidity of the Indians to dispose of
these gems, and gratitude alone causes them to part with any of these
treasures, which, like the mountaineers of Thibet, they regard with
mystical reverence. The Navajos wear them as ear-drops