The chest had been full to the brim, and we spent the whole day, and
the greater part of the next night, in a scrutiny of its contents.
There had been nothing like order or arrangement. Everything had been
heaped in promiscuously. 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, 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 identification.
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 figures;
with two sword-handles exquisitely embossed, and many other smaller
articles which I can not 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 timekeepers, 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 that 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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