[54] “Esto habemos visto,” says the Letter of Vera Cruz, “algunos de nosotros, y los que lo han visto dizen que es la mas terrible y la mas espantosa cosa de ver que jamas han visto.” Still more strongly speaks Bernal Diaz. (Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 51.) The Letter computes that there were fifty or sixty persons thus butchered in each of the _teocallis_ every year; giving an annual consumption, in the countries which the Spaniards had then visited, of three or four thousand victims! (Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.) However loose this arithmetic may be, the general fact is appalling. [55] Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 122.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 51, 52.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 43.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 5, cap. 13, 14.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 83. [56] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 53.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 82.--Carta de Vera Cruz, MS. A complete inventory of the articles received from Montezuma is contained in the _Carta de Vera Cruz_.--The following are a few of the items. Two collars made of gold and precious stones. A hundred ounces of gold ore, that their Highnesses might see in what state the gold came from the mines. Two birds made of green feathers, with feet, beaks, and eyes of gold,--and, in the same piece with them, animals of gold resembling snails. A large alligator’s head of gold. A bird of green feathers, with feet, beak, and eyes of gold. Two birds made of thread and feather-work, having the quills of their wings and tails, their feet, eyes, and the ends of their beaks of gold,--standing upon two reeds covered with gold, which are raised on balls of feather-work and gold embroidery, one white and the other yellow, with seven tassels of feather-work hanging from each of them. A large silver wheel weighing forty-eight marks, several bracelets and leaves of the same metal, together with five smaller shields, the whole weighing sixty-two marks of silver. A box of feather-work embroidered on leather, with a large plate of gold, weighing seventy ounces, in the midst. Two pieces of cloth woven with feathers; another with variegated colors; and another worked with black and white figures. A large wheel of gold, with figures of strange animals on it, and worked with tufts of leaves; weighing three thousand eight hundred ounces. A fan of variegated feather-work, with thirty-seven rods plated with gold. Five fans of variegated feathers,--four of which have ten, and the other thirteen, rods embossed with gold. Sixteen shields of precious stones, with feathers of various colors hanging from their rims. Two pieces of cotton very richly wrought with black and white embroidery. Six shields, each covered with a plate of gold, with something resembling a golden mitre in the centre. [57] “Una muy larga Carta,” says Gomara, in his loose analysis of it. Crónica, cap. 40.