Hassaurek was surprised not to find emeralds for sale at Guayaquil, as they had been found in abundance in Equador at the time of the Conquest. The Alcalde of the region around the River Bechile gave Stephenson, the traveller, three emeralds which were found in the sands at the mouth of the river. Concerning the emerald mines whence the ancients drew their supplies of gems, there remains but little positive information. They were undoubtedly established in Arabia, Africa, and Scythia, but all record of them is lost. As regards the Egyptian mines, modern travellers have proved their existence. At the ancient mines at Gebel Zabara, which were worked in the time of the Ptolemies, M. Callaud found the tools of the miners as they had left them, and also many inferior emeralds among the _débris_ of the pits. Mehemet Ali attempted to reopen them, but was unsuccessful, as the matrix of the gem proved to be exhausted. This discovery establishes the truth of Pliny’s remark concerning some of the localities of the emerald. They are the same gems whose beauty was praised by the Persian poets. We have no evidence of ancient mines of emeralds in Asia; and Tavernier, who sought in vain to discover them, ventured to state that he believed that some of the emeralds he saw in India must have come from Peru, by way of the Philippine Islands, long before the Conquest by the Spaniards. Other mines undoubtedly were worked in Africa; and we know that in the time of Justinian, the Abyssinians searched the coast, even as far as the equator. The African emeralds were not of the first quality; and at a later period of Roman history the Scythian emeralds were reckoned as the first in value and beauty, the Bactrian second, while the African were classed as third. About the fourth century the throne of the White Huns was famous for the splendid Scythian emeralds which adorned it.