306 THE MAGIC OP JEWELS AND CHARMS
the
ship that was bearing him toward Algiers ; it was lost in the sea, and
in the words of Brantôme "vanished from the sight of mankind, unworthy
to possess such a miracle of nature. ' ' The loss of this pearl is
looked upon by the French writer as a punishment for the "inscription"
Cortes had caused to be placed upon it: Inter natos mulierum non
sur-rexit major; *° this refers to John the Baptist and was, as we have
seen, engraved upon one of the famous emeralds of Cortes. Brantôme
believes that its application to a simple product of nature was
sacrilegious and the cause of the object's loss ; he also sees in this
loss an omen of the death of the Emperor Charles which occurred shortly
afterward, and he draws attention to the fact that the "Africans"
called their kings "precious stones." 41
The
Aztec art-workers of the period immediately antedating the Spanish
Conquest had attained a high order of skill in the difficult work of
inlaying carefully cut and shaped bits of precious material so as to
produce some form or design of symbolic or religious meaning. In
judging the artistic merit of such work, we must always remember that
the Aztec inlayers were only provided with rude and primitive tools
and implements for the execution of their task, and extraordinary
patience and application must have been necessary to complete some of
the objects that have been preserved for us. This art seems only to
have been cultivated in ancient Mexico and Central America, and
perhaps Peru also ; of the Mexican work some twenty-five examples have
been saved. The Spaniards, shortly after their first landing, were
given an opportunity to judge of the quality of this Aztec inlaying,
for among the gifts sent by Montezuma to Cortes, were five such
objects, a mask with incrusta-
