Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/101

Rh agents to the emperor, and points out the painful anxiety in which he has been left by not receiving any reply to his many dutiful applications.

The local officials also addressed a letter to the emperor in the name of the army and settlers, extolling the deeds and loyalty of their leader, defending their treatment of Tapia, instigated as he was by the hostile Velazquez, and urging the prior claims of conquerors to grants and appointments. Father Olmedo supported these representations in a special letter, wherein he reviewed the prospects of conversion and requested that religious teachers be sent out. To add weight to the petitions, they received the usual accompaniment of treasure, in addition to the regular fifth. The present consisted of the choicest specimens of fabrics, feather-work, curiosities, and jewels, set apart from the late repartition, and increased from the subsequent influx of tributes, worth fully one hundred and fifty thousand ducats. Its notable features were a number of pearls and an immense emerald, as it was supposed to be, and trinkets, which wholly eclipsed the already familiar specimens of native goldsmiths' work, in the form of fishes with scales of different metals, of birds and other animals with movable heads and tongues, masks with mosaic ornamentation, and a variety of pieces after European models. Several large bones were also sent, uncovered at Coyuhuacan,