The treasure was all neatly arranged in a recess near the narrow passage by which we had entered the cavern, and a pretty careful inspection of it soon convinced me that Ricardo had been only speaking the truth when he assured me that, although it was probably the booty of some dead-and- gone gang of pirates, he had certainly had no hand in its accumulation. For everything bore unmistakable evidence of having lain where it was for a great many years--probably at least a hundred, if one might judge by the dates on a few of the coins which I examined, and which formed part of the treasure.  The man who accumulated the store must have been an individual of a very enterprising nature, for there were great piles of strong, solid wooden cases packed to the brim with doubloons and pieces-of-eight; two hundred and eighty-five gold bricks, weighing about forty pounds each, every brick encased in the original raw-hide wrapper in which it was brought down from the mines, now hard and dry and shrivelled; quite a large pile of rough, shapeless ingots of gold and silver, conveying the suggestion that at various times large quantities of gold and silver plate and jewellery had been run through the melting pot; and, finally, a leather bag containing not far short of a peck measure of gems of every conceivable description, all of the stones being cut, and evidently taken from pieces of jewellery of various kinds that had probably been broken up and melted.  I had not the most remote idea of the value of the whole, but I was convinced that it must be something fabulous, and I afterwards learned that I was right.