Having assorted all with care, we found ourselves possessed of even
vaster wealth than we had at first supposed. In coin there was rather
more than four hundred and fifty thousand dollars—estimating the value
of the pieces, as accurately as we could, by the tables of the period.
There was not a particle of silver. All was gold of antique date and of
great variety—French, Spanish, and German money, with a few English
guineas, and some counters[14] of which we had never seen specimens
before. There were several very large and heavy coins, so worn that we
could make nothing of their inscriptions. There was no American money.
The value of the jewels we found more difficulty in estimating. There
were diamonds—some of them exceedingly large and fine—a hundred and ten
in all, and not one of them small; eighteen rubies of remarkable
brilliancy; three hundred and ten emeralds, all very beautiful; and
twenty-one sapphires, with an opal. These stones had all been broken
from their settings and thrown loose in the chest. The settings
themselves, which we picked out from among the other gold, appeared to
have been beaten up with hammers, as if to prevent indentification.
Besides all this, there was a vast quantity of solid gold
ornaments—nearly two hundred massive finger and ear rings; rich
chains—thirty of these, if I remember; eighty-three very large and
heavy crucifixes; five gold censers of great value; a prodigious golden
punch-bowl, ornamented with richly chased vine-leaves and
Bacchanalian[15] figures; with two sword handles exquisitely embossed,
and many other smaller articles which I cannot recollect. The weight of
these valuables exceeded three hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois;
and in this estimate I have not included one hundred and ninety-seven
superb gold watches, three of the number being worth each five hundred
dollars, if one. Many of them were very old, and as time-keepers
valueless, the works having suffered, more or less, from corrosion; but
all were richly jewelled and in cases of great worth. We estimated the
entire contents of the chest, that night, at a million and a half of
dollars; and, upon the subsequent disposal of the trinkets and jewels
(a few being retained for our own use), it was found we had greatly
undervalued the treasure.
When, at length, we had concluded our examination, and the intense
excitement of the time had in some measure subsided, Legrand, who saw
that I was dying with impatience for a solution of this most
extraordinary riddle, entered into a full detail of all the
circumstances connected with it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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